THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINA 


FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 

ALEXANDER  B.  ANDREWS 

Class  of  1893 

TRUSTEE  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY 

FRIEND  OF  THE  LIBRARY 


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HISTORY  OF  WAKE  COUNTY 


HISTORY 


OF 


WAKE  COUNTY 

NORTH  CAROLINA 

WITH  SKETCHES  OF  THOSE  WHO  HAVE 
MOST  INFLUENCED  ITS  DEVELOPMENT 


BY 

HOPE  SUMMERELL  CHAMBERLAIN 

Pen  and  Ink  Illustrations 

BY  THE  Author 


Edwards  &  Broughton  Printing  Company 

Raleigh,  N.  C. 

1922 


Copyright,  1922 

BY 

Mrs.  William  Johnston  Andrews 


Mrs.  Alexander  Boyd  Andrews 


This  Book 
is  dedicated  to  the  memory  of 
our  late  beloved  chairman 

Mrs.  Alexander  Boyd  Andrews 
(Julia  Martha  Johnston) 

BY 

The  Wake  County  Committee  of  the 

North  Carolina  Society  of 

Colonial  Dames  of  America 

under  whose  auspices 

IT  is  written  and 

PRINTED 


Author's  Dedication 

O  her  just  pride  in  her  own  colo- 
nial ancestry,  Mrs.  Alexander 
Boyd  Andrews  (Julia  Martha 
Johnston)  added  a  strong  inter- 
est in  the  early  history  of  her 
State.  From  the  tradition  of  Mecklenburg 
where  she  was  born,  she  came  to  be  intensely 
interested  in  the  annals  of  Wake,  her  adoptive 
County,  and  in  the  development  of  Raleigh, 
where  she  lived  to  be  a  blessing  to  all  who 
knew  her. 

She  was  a  patriot,  as  well  as  a  Christian 
wife  and  mother;  she  loved  the  inspiration  of 
old  days,  as  well  as  the  new  friends  she  found 
everywhere.  She  was  honored  by  being  chosen 
as  Vice-Regent  from  North  Carolina  of  Mount 
Vernon  Ladies  Association.  Often  during  her 
lifetime  she  recommended  to  the  writer  of 
this  book  the  writing  of  a  history  of  Wake 
County  as  a  worthy  work  for  this  Committee 
of  the  North  Carolina  Society  of  Colonial 
Dames  in  America. 

Thus  this  book  becomes  a  memorial  to  her 
friendship  and  to  her  ideals,  a  sincere  labor 

[9] 

CO 


10  AUTHOR  S  DEDICATION 

of  love  undertaken  at  her  often  expressed  de- 
sire. It  pictures  the  community  she  loved. 
It  embodies  the  interests  of  that  Committee 
which  came  into  activity  under  her  leadership. 
It  is  the  fittest  monument  to  her  worth  and 
dignity  that  we  can  raise.  May  she  know 
that  we  remember  and  feel  that  we  still 
love  her,  and  approve  of  our  dedication  to  her 
of  the  book  she  inspired. 


^^ 


Contents 

CHAPTER  I 
Introductory 

Introductory  Paragraph  —  Lawson,  Explorer,  1700 — Journey 
through  the  Carolinas — Visit  to  Falls  of  "News  Creek" — Possibly 
traversed  what  is  now  Wake  County — Granville  Tobacco  Path — 
Beginnings  in  North  Carolina — Causes  of  great  love  of  Liberty — 
Poor  Government  of  Lords  Proprietors — Locke's  Fundamental 
Constitutions — Geographical  and  Topographical  Conditions — Inde- 
pendence of  Settlers — Col.  Byrd's  libel  of  Settlers — Good  character 
of  same — Growth  of  Settlements  in  North  Carolina — Wake  existed 
as  parts  of  Johnston  and  Orange  Counties  in  1765 — Tryon's  Admin- 
istration as  Governor — Contrast  between  East  and  West  of  Colony — 
Tryon's  Palace  at  New  Berne — Grievances  of  Different  Sections — 
The  Regulators  War — Tryon's  Expedition  against  Regulators — 
Setting  off  of  four  New  Counties  in  1771,  of  which  the  Fourth  was 
Wake — Tryon's  Camp  at  Hunter's  Lodge  in  Wake  County,  spring 
of  1771 — Laying  off  of  Rhamkatt  Road — Naming  of  Wake  County 
— Esther  Wake,  Margaret  Wake,  Lady  Tryon — Derivation  of  Terri- 
tory of  Wake — Position  in  State — Soil — Products — Elevation — 
Climate — Streams — Raleigh  Capital  City  and  County  Seat. 

CHAPTER  H 
The  First  Twenty-Five  Years 

Tryon's  March  from  Wake  to  Alamance — The  Quelling  of  the 
Regulators — Rapid  Growth  of  Revolutionary  sentiment — Thomas 
Jefferson's  Tribute — 1772,  First  Court  held  in  Wake — Wake  Cross 
Roads — Bloomsbury — Source  of  Name — Joel  Lane's  Tavern — 
"First  Capitol" — Inscription  on  Tablet — Supplies  furnished  by  Joel 
Lane — Inauguration  of  Gov,  Thomas  Burke — His  Inaugural  Ad- 
dress— Sketch  of  Burke's  Life — Burke  Square — Interval  between 
Yorktown  and  1789 — Location  of  New  Capital — Discussed  in  In- 


12  CONTENTS 

tervals  of  Debates  about  the  Ratification  of  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion— Account  of  Debate  on  Location  of  Capital — Wake  County- 
Site  voted  Aug,  2,  1788 — Pros  and  Cons — Constitution  Ratified 
1789 — Wake  County  Site  Confirmed  1791 — Willie  Jones  and  Com- 
missioners— Joel  Lane's  Tract — Laying  Off  of  Streets — Price  of 
Tract,  etc. — Description  of  City  Plan — Names  of  Streets — Park 
System — First  Sale  of  City  Lots — Building  of  State  House. 

CHAPTER  III 
Early  Worthies 

Number  of  Inhabitants  of  Wake  County  in  1800 — Character  of 
Settlers — General  Mode  of  Life  in  1800 — Cotton — Transportation 
— Tobacco  —  Corn — Wheat — Live  Stock — Homes — Vehicles  — 
Horseback  Riding — Amusements — Look  of  Country — Mode  of  Liv- 
ing of  Settlers — Easy  Success — Slavery — Schools — Stores  and  Tav- 
erns— Court  Week — Religious  Services — Discontent  with  Primitive 
Conditions — Prominent  Citizens  of  Wake — John  Hinton  and  De- 
scendants— Theophilus  Hunter  and  Descendants — Joel  Lane  and 
Brothers — Story  of  Lane's  Scheming — ^Two  Jones  Families  of  Wake 
— Kinship  with  Allen  and  Willie  Jones  —  Mingling  of  Blood  of 
First  Families  of  Wake — Fanning  Jones  the  Tory — Dr.  Calvin  Jones 
of  Wake  Forest  —  Names  of  Taxpayers  of  Wake,  i8cxD  —  Same 
Names  to-day. 

CHAPTER  IV 
Raleigh  The  Capital  Village 

Colonel  Creecy's  Description  of  Raleigh  in  1800 — Old  Sassafras 
Tree — Governor  Ashe,  1795, — FirstGovernor  Residing  in  Raleigh — 
First  Governor's  Mansion — Joel  Lane  House  —  Andrew  Johnson 
House — Academy — (Old  Lovejoy's)  Begun  1802 — Female  Depart- 
ment 1807 — Additions — Curriculum — Dr.McPheeters — Other  Early 
Schools  of  Wake — John  Chavis — Presentation  of  Globes  to  Univer- 
sity of  North  Carolina  by  Matrons  of  Raleigh — The  old  "Palace" 
or  Governor's  Mansion  at  Foot  of  Fayetteville  Street — Community 
Life  of  Old  Raleigh — Plays — Processions — Speakings — Banquets — 


CONTENTS  13 

Census  of  Raleigh  in  March,  1807 — City  Government — City  Watch, 
181 1 — Art  Treasure  of  Old  State  House — Story  of  Canova's  Statue 
of  Washington  —  Fourth  of  July  Celebration,  1809 — Subsequent 
Celebrations  —  First  Church  Edifices  —  List  of  Subjects  for  Further 
Interest  in  Raleigh  History. 


CHAPTER  V 
Early  Life  and  Thought 

Forgetting  the  New  Necessary  to  Understanding  of  Old — Politics 
— Economics — Definition  of  Democracy — Federalists — Jeffersonians 
— Warring  Ideals,  French  and  English — Andrew  Jackson — Political 
Change  in  North  Carolina — State  Banks — "Tippecanoe  and  Tyler 
Too" — Henry  Clay — Old  Whigs — Backwardness  ofjEducation — The 
Western  Fever — Discussions  of  Slavery — New  England's  Didacti- 
cism— Internal  Improvements — Canals — High  Cost  of  Living,  1 82 1  — 
Stage  Coach  Travel — Newspapers — The  Gales — Raleigh  "Register" 
— "The  Standard" — Scarcity  of  Books — Food  in  Raleigh — Furniture 
— Fashions — Table  Ware — Housewives,  Duties — The  Unmanage- 
able Young  Folks  of  the  Twenties  and  Thirties. 


CHAPTER  VI 
Giants  of  Those  Days 

Col.  William  Polk— The  Old  State  Bank— Colonel  Polk  on  Duel- 
ing (Alfred  Jones  Duel) — Colonel  Polk  Beats  an  Old  Neighbor — His 
Dancing — His  Son  Leonidas — His  Friend  and  his  Cousin  and  his 
Bank  Janitor — Sketch  of  William  Boylan — Invention  of  Cotton  Gin 
— Mr.  Boylan's  Kind  Heart — His  Home,  Wakefield — Peter  Brown 
— Practising  Lawyer — His  Return  to  Raleigh — ^Judge  Seawell — 
Moses  Mordecai — William  Peck — Anecdote  of  State  Bank  Days — 
Young  R.  S.  Tucker  —  Dr.  William  McPheeters  —  Disciplinarian  — 
Peace  Brothers — Joseph  Gales  and  Mrs.  Winifred  Gales  his  Wife — 
DavidL. Swain — HisLife — HisHistoricalWork — Mentionof  Familiar 
Characters  in  the  Raleigh  of  His  Time. 


14  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VII 
More  Biographies 

Noticeof  John  Marshall — Anecdote  of  his  Stay  in  Raleigh — Refer- 
ence to  Him  from  Governor  Swain — Quotation  by  Judge  Badger — 
Judge  Gaston — Influence  on  Constitutional  Con  ventionof  1 83  ^ — Last 
Religious  Disability  Removed  by  Influence  of  William  Johnston — 
Gaston's  Eloquence — His  Piety — John  Haywood,  State  Treasurer — 
Other  Members  of  the  Haywood  Family — ^John  Haywood's  Friendly 
Ways — Popularity — Devotion  to  University  of  North  Carolina — 
Funeral  Eulogy — Judge  Badger — Youthful  Ability — Many  Honors 
— Battle  Family — Duncan  Cameron — His  Buildings — Leonidas  K. 
Polk  (Fighting  Bishop) — Brigadier-General  in  Confederate  Army — 
His  Life,  Services  as  Bishop  and  as  Soldier — Brave  Death. 

CHAPTER  VIII 
Improvements  and  Progress 

Stimulus  of  Loss — Burning  of  the  Old  State  House — Destruction 
of  Statue  of  Washington — Other  Alarms  of  Fire — Miss  Betsy  Geddy 
— Controversy  over  New  Capitol — Judge  Gaston's  Influence — Ap- 
propriation for  New  Capitol — Building  Committees — Corner  Stone, 
July  4,  1833  —  Same  Day,  Railroad  Plan — Final  Cost  of  Capitol — 
Its  Material — Its  Designers  and  Builders — Method  of  Moving  Stone 
for  Capitol — Mrs.  Sarah  Hawkins  Polk  and  Her  Street  Cars — Spirit- 
ed Raleigh  Women — Poor  Fire  Protection — Hunter's  Pond — Descrip- 
tion from  Petersburg  Paper — Eagerness  for  Railroad  in  North  Caro- 
lina— Capitol  Finished — Railroad  Comes  In — Great  Double  Cele- 
bration— Described  by  Witness — Early  Engines,  Tracks  and  Cars 
— Time  Table — Breath  of  Progress. 

CHAPTER  IX 
The  Middle  Years 

Rapid  Progress — Establishment  of  Capital  as  Center,  Political  and 
Social — General  Prosperity — Plantation  Homes — Mexican  War — 


CONTENTS  15 

Discovery  of  Gold  in  California — Effect  on  Men's  Minds— Cheerful 
Temper — Great  Political  Campaign  Waged  in  Wake  —  Educational 
Interest— Saint  Mary's  School— Wake  Forest  College — Free  School 
— Growth  of  Population — Increase  of  Luxury — Of  Fashion — Dress 
and  Food — Advantage  of  Railroads  though  Despatched  Without 
Telegraphs — Interest  in  Farming  Methods — Culture — Reading — 
Discord  over  Slavery — Rift  Growing  Wider — Differing  Opinions  in 
Raleigh — Old  Heads — Hot  Young  Hearts — The  Actual  Secession — 
After — The  Surrender  of  the  Capital  as  Narrated  by  Governor 
Swain — The  "End  of  an  Era." 


CHAPTER  X 
Our  Benefactors 

Five  Citizens — One  Stranger— A  Woman — John  Rex  the  Tanner 
and  his  Bequest  for  a  Hospital — Intention  not  Fully  Realized  and 
why — William  Peace  and  Peace  Institute — Dorothea  Dix — Sketch 
of  Life — Story  of  Founding  of  State  Hospital  for  Insane — Stanhope 
Pullen — His  Peculiarities — His  Business  Success — His  Gifts:  to  City, 
to  State,  to  State  College  for  Women — John  Pullen:  Charitable, 
Consecrated — His  Example — His  Remarkable  Funeral — R.  B. 
Rainey— His  Gift  of  Library  to  City — His  Modesty— The  Real 
Meaning  of  his  Gift. 

CHAPTER  XI 
Distinguished  Visitors 

General  Lafayette — Henry  Clay — President  James  K.  Polk — 
President  Buchanan — General  Joseph  Lane — Stephen  A.  Douglas — 
Mrs.  Jefferson  Davis — President  Andrew  Johnson — President  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt — Woodrow  Wilson,  Just  Before  Becoming  Candidate 
for  the  Presidency — Vice-President  Sherman — Vice-President  Mar- 
shall— State  Literary  and  Historical  Speakers — Edwin  Markham — 
James  Bryce — Henry  Cabot  Lodge — ^Jules  Jusserand — Ex-President 
Taft — Frenchmen  of  the  High  Commission  during  World  War — 
General  Tyson — Dorothea  Dix  Several  Times — Dr.  Anna  Howard 
Shaw — ^Miss  Rankin  the  First  Congresswoman. 


16  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XII 
These  Later  Days 

Life  Story  of  a  Nation — ^Wm.  L.  Saunders  and  Colonial  Records 
— Self-Consciousness  in  History  Comes  Later — Early  Manufactur- 
ing— Hand-loom  Products — Home  Dyes — Women's  Handicrafts — 
Early  Before-the-war  Cotton  Factories — None  in  Wake — Cotton 
Gins  in  Wake — Cotton-seed  Oil  made  in  Wake  Before  the  War — 
Pianos  made  in  Raleigh — Paper  Mills  in  Wake:  Joseph  Gales'  and 
Royster's — Disposal  of  Latter  Mill — Agricultural  Methods — ^War- 
time Impetus  to  Manufacturing — Home  Work  Given  Out  to 
Country  Women — Sewing — Knitting — Manufactures  in  Raleigh 
for  Confederacy  —  Powder  —  Guncaps  —  Cartridges  —  Matches  — 
Curry-combs — Metal  Findings — John  Brown  Pikes — Wooden  Shoes 
—  Cotton  Cloth  Found  in  Devereux  Mansion  —  Cotton  Cultiva- 
tion—  Reconstruction  Period  —  Priestley  Mangum  and  Man  gum 
Terrace  — Developed  More  Perfectly — Walter  Page — State  Chroni- 
cle— ^Watauga  Club — Agricultural  and  Mechanical  College — Growth 
of  Manufactures  in  Raleigh — Rural  Free  Delivery — Progress  all 
over  Wake  County. 


H 


CHAPTER  I 


Introductory 

T  is  difficult  to  realize  beginnings. 
Let  us  turn  back  the  stream  of 
time,  let  us  look  at  our  old  famil- 
iar places  in  the  light  of  former 
days.  No  one  has  stepped  twice 
in  the  same  river,  and  its  onward  flow  changes 
all  shores. 

Who  has  not  said  to  himself,  as  he  passed 
along  famihar  streets  and  considered  familiar 

landmarks, —  .77,7 

"I  wish  Id  seen 

The  many  towns  this  town  has  been.'' 

So  it  is  with  this  country  we  live  in  and  pos- 
sess. When  we  go  abroad  upon  the  hilly 
roads  of  this  pleasant  inland  County  of  Wake, 
when  we  note  the  outlines  of  its  ridges  agamst 
the  sky,  and  see  field  and  forest  and  farm,  and 
scenes  of  man's  long  residence,  we  often  wish 
to  think  backward  and  perceive  clearly  these 
old  well-known  scenes  with  the  eyes  of  the 
first  European   explorers    as    they   threaded 

[17] 


18  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

their  way  through  forest  glades,  peopled  at 
that  time  only  by  the  red  men. 

The  first  historian  of  North  Carolina,  the 
explorer  Lawson,  although  known  to  have 
passed  through  the  central  part  of  this  State, 
cannot  actually  be  proved  to  have  trod  the 
soil  of  Wake  County.  One  authority  on  our 
local  history  thinks  that  he  did,  and  indeed  it 
seems  more  than  possible. 

Lawson  made  a  journey  through  western 
and  middle  Carolina  in  the  year  seventeen 
hundred  or  thereabout.  His  course  was  a  long 
loop  coming  out  of  South  Carolina  and  cross- 
ing the  Catawba  and  the  ''Realkin"  (or  Yad- 
kin) and  other  streams,  continuing  in  a  north- 
easterly direction  and  then  due  east,  until  he 
finally  reached  the  settlements  of  the  North 
Carolina  seaboard.  His  descriptive  travel- 
ler's journal  reads  as  fresh  and  as  crisply  In- 
teresting as  if  penned  last  year,  and  we  get  the 
impression  of  a  writer  alert  in  every  sense  and 
perception.  He  was  a  fine  optimistic  fellow, 
and  though  he  was  hired  no  doubt  to  praise 
the  new  colony,  and  so  draw  In  settlers  from 
among  the  readers  of  his  account,  yet  no  one 
can  close  his  book  without  the  feeling  that  he 


INTRODUCTORY  19 

too,  like  many  another  coming  to  North  Car- 
olina to  live,  soon  fell  in  love  with  the  climate, 
and  delighted  to  bask  under  the  sunny  sky. 

Hear  his  account  of  leaving  ''Acconeechy 
Town"  (which  must  have  been  near  Hills- 
borough), and  marching  twenty  miles  east- 
ward over  "stony  rough  ways"  till  he  reached 
"a  mighty  river."  '^This  river  is  as  large  as 
the  Realkin,  the  south  bank  having  tracts  of 
good  land,  the  banks  high,  and  stone  quarries. 
We  got  then  to  the  north  shore,  which  is  poor 
white  sandy  soil  with  scrubby  oaks.  We  went 
ten  miles  or  so,  and  sat  down  at  the  falls  of  a 
large  creek  where  lay  mighty  rocks,  the  water 
making  a  strange  noise  as  of  a  great  many 
water  wheels  at  once.  This  I  take  to  be  the 
falls  of  News  Creek,  called  by  the  Indians 
We-Quo-Whom." 

For  a  first  trip  through  an  unknown  wilder- 
ness, guided  only  by  a  compass,  this  suggests 
the  neighborhood,  and  describes  the  granite 
ridges  that  traverse  Wake  County,  and  pro- 
duce the  Falls  of  Neuse,  where  the  river  flows 
across  one  of  these  barriers. 

During  the  next  days'  travel  he  comments 
on  the  land  ''abating  of  its  height"  and  ''mixed 


20  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

with  pines  and  poor  soil."  This,  too, 
makes  it  sound  as  if  he  perceived  the  swift 
transition  which  may  be  seen  in  the  eastern 
part  of  Wake  County  from  one  zone  to  the 
next,  from  the  hard-wood  growth  to  the  pine 
timber,  and  from  a  clay  to  a  sandy  soil. 

Lawson  highly  praised  the  midland  of  North 
Carolina,  between  the  sandy  land  and  the 
mountains,  and  it  is  pleasant  to  read  his  en- 
thusiastic account  of  this  home  of  ours,  and 
learn  the  impression  it  made  on  a  good  observ- 
er in  its  pristine  state,  and  before  the  white 
man's  foot  had  become  familiar  with  the  long 
trading  path,  which  must  have  crossed  west, 
near  this  section,  but  not  certainly  in  the  exact 
longitude  of  Wake  County. 

This  trail  is  known  to  have  passed  Hills- 
borough, and  to  have  crossed  Haw  River  at 
the  Haw  Fields.  It  may  well  have  followed 
the  same  course,  as  later  did  the  Granville 
Tobacco  Path,  which  certainly  traversed 
Wake  County  near  Raleigh. 

Wake  County  was  one  of  the  latest  of  the 
pre-Revolutionary  counties  to  be  set  off  from 
the  rest,  and  its  boundaries  were  not  in  any 
sense    natural    boundaries,    dependent    upon 


INTRODUCTORY 


21 


natural  barriers  or  the  course  of  streams,  but 
were  run  and  divided  for  purely  political 
reasons. 

The  story  of  the  making  and  naming  of 
Wake  County  is  an  interesting  one,  and  prop- 
erly to  tell  it  requires  some  general  account  of 
the  Colony  of  North  Carolina  and  its  begin- 
nings. 

The  first  settlement  of  the  Carolinas  was 
begun  under  the  charter  of  a  company  of 
English  noblemen,  the  Lords  Proprietors.  If 
these  owners  received  their  quit-rents  as  speci- 
fied, they  did  not  take  much  further  interest 
in  their  plantations,  nor  molest  the  settlers; 
hence,  the  northern  colony,  being  so  neglected 
and  more  isolated,  was  ever  the  freest  of  all 
the  Old  Thirteen;  one  might  even  say  the 
freest  and  easiest  of  them.  Having  no  good 
harbor,  and  hidden  behind  the  sand-bars  from 
the  storms  of  Hatteras,  it  enjoyed  its  immun- 
ity. Not  being  easily  reached  from  outside, 
it  did  as  its  people  chose  with  governors  and 
edicts,  dodged  its  taxes,  harbored  fugitives, 
and  governed  its  own  affairs  quite  comfort- 
ably. 


22  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

The  Lords  Proprietors  employed  John 
Locke,  the  great  English  philosopher,  to  draw 
up  a  form  of  government  for  their  two  infant 
colonies,  and  when  he  did  so  a  more  unsuitable 
set  of  constitutional  provisions  for  a  thinly 
settled  state  would  be  hard  to  find. 

This  '^Fundamental  Constitution"  was  a 
confused  and  complicated  plan  full  of  strange 
titles  and  orders  of  nobility,  with  Its  ''Land- 
graves" and  Its  "Caciques,"  a  plan  which  It 
would  have  been  hard  enough  to  follow  In  a 
populous  society,  with  no  will  of  Its  own;  and 
which  it  was  quite  Impossible  to  carry  out  in 
a  sparsely  peopled  edge  of  the  wilderness' 
where  the  principal  aim  in  life  of  the  inhabit- 
ants was  to  escape  all  outside  coercion,  and  to 
delight  In  space  and  liberty. 

The  confusion  brought  about  by  this  fam- 
ous Locke  Constitution  was  also  a  cause  of 
this  glorious  opportunity,  eagerly  grasped  by 
the  colonists,  to  avoid  outside  Interference,  as 
well  as  dispense  with  all  the  Inconveniences 
of  home  rule  and  superfluous  government. 

Still  another  cause  of  freedom  was  the  rapid 
succession  of  governors  sent  by  the  Lords 
Proprietors,  some  grossly  incompetent,  some 


INTRODUCTORY  23 

most  tyrannical,  and  all  objectionable  to  the 
temper  of  the  colony  even  when  of  average 
diligence,  or  because  of  that  diligence. 

The  later  Royal  governors  were  on  the 
whole  better  men,  but  the  custom  had  gone 
on  too  long  for  them  to  subdue  those  who  had 
defied  so  long  and  so  successfully  any  other 
government  save  their  own. 

Again,  the  liberty  of  North  Carolina  was 
favored  simply  by  the  shape  of  the  coast  as 
mentioned  above,  indented  as  it  is  by  sounds 
and  wide  tide-water  rivers,  intersected  by 
great  swamps,  and  the  whole  shut  in  from  the 
highway  of  nations  by  shallows  and  sand-bars. 
Even  neighborhoods  were  secluded  from  each 
other  by  sounds  and  estuaries,  while  the  whole 
was  protected  from  outside  interference.  The 
individual  planter  scarcely  saw  a  dozen  folk 
outside  of  his  own  family  in  a  year. 

This  freedom  of  the  free  in  North  Carolina 
was  well  known,  and  many  came  to  her  bor- 
ders to  enjoy  it. 

The  adventurous,  then  as  now,  longed  for 
a  wilderness  in  which  to  wander;  the  hunter 
wanted  game,  and  found  abundance  there. 


24  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Religious  sects,  persecuted  elsewhere,  were 
unmolested  in  North  Carolina;  dissenters  and 
Quakers  could  settle  in  peace.  Indeed  the 
colonists,  like  Sir  John  Falstaff,  had  almost 
forgotten  what  ''the  inside  of  a  church  was 
like."  Those  also  who  wanted  to  rub  out 
their  reckoning  and  begin  life  over  again,  could 
do  so  unquestioned,  and  those  who  simply 
wanted  to  make  a  living,  could  make  it  al- 
most too  easily  for  their  own  welfare,  by  half 
cultivating  the  rich  bottom-lands. 

At  no  time  were  there  any  more  really  crim- 
inal persons  in  North  Carolina,  in  proportion  to 
the  population  than  there  were  in  Virginia,  al- 
though there  may  well  have  been  more  fugi- 
tives from  the  law  in  the  strip  of  no-man's- 
land  that  intervened  between  North  Carolina 
and  Virginia  before  the  dividing  line  was  run 
and  agreed  upon. 

One  may  read  and  smile  at  the  witty  libel  of 
Colonel  William  Byrd  of  Westover,  and  note 
how  this  colony  and  its  liberty  roused  the  ire 
of  the  aristocratic  Virginian. 

He  regards  it  as  a  big  brother  does  a  very 
impertinent  smaller  one  who  has  run  away 
and  is  making  faces  from  over  the  fence.     His 


INTRODUCTORY  25 

chuckles  are  a  bit  spiteful  as  he  describes  the 
inferiority,    compared   with   Virginia,    of   the 
^^Rogues  Harbor,"  this  ^'Redemptioners  Ref- 
uge."    He   waxes   sarcastic   over   their  over- 
primitive  homes,  and  habits  of  living,  choosing 
extreme  examples;  he  refers  to  their  lack  of 
piety  and  churches,   adverts  to  their  love  of 
liquor  and  laziness,  their  lack  of  baptism  for 
their  children  and  of  the  sanction  of  church 
ceremony  for  the  union  of  the  parents,  and 
then,  having  had  his  merciless  fling  at  them,  he 
unwillingly   acknowledges    that   the   dividing 
line  will  have  to  be  run  fifteen  miles  or  so  north 
of  the  line  that  Virginia  has  always  been  claim- 
ing. 

He  is  also  forced  to  record  that  all  the  set- 
tlers on  this  strip  of  territory  were  glad  to  hear 
that  they  had  been  set  ofl^  into  North  Carolina 
forever,  but  seems  also  to  regret  that  by  this 
means  these  undesirables  and  border  ruffians 
were  deprived  of  chance  for  future  amend- 
ment. 

Colonel  Byrd  coveted  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
them  put  to  rights,  although  the  including  of 
them  in  Virginia  would  have  seemed  to  spoil 
the  high  moral  average  of  that  colony  accord- 
ing to  his  telling. 


26  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

The  fundamental  nature  of  our  population 
was  sound  and  wholesome,  incentive  to  crime 
was  lacking;  there  was  plenty  of  a  rude  sort, 
no  crowding  for  any,  and  the  excess  of  liberty 
was  better  endured  there  than  in  the  west  of 
of  the  eighteen-fifties,  where  there  was  gold, 
and  the  lust  of  it,  to  excite  men's  ambition. 

Colonists  were  coming  in  great  numbers  by 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Great 
Indian  wars  were  fought  to  a  conclusion,  and 
the  west  was  opened  up  more  and  more,  as 
people  pushed  up  the  great  rivers.  By  1765, 
Mecklenburg  and  Rowan  had  filled  up,  faster 
perhaps  than  the  intervening  lands.  The  soil 
grew  more  fertile  farther  west.  Scotch-Irish, 
Moravian  and  Pennsylvania  "Dutch",  second 
generation  pioneers,  came  down  the  Piedmont 
and  settled  the  pleasant  valleys. 

A  few  years  later,  Salisbury  and  Charlotte 
were  thriving  little  frontier  towns  and  Hills- 
borough was  almost  as  large  as  it  is  today. 

For  many  years  after  Col.  William  Byrd  and 
Edward  Mosely  had  surveyed  the  dividing  line, 
Wake  County  was  but  an  undistinguished  part 
of  the  middle  western  woods,  with  here  and 
there  a  settler;  but  by  1765  it  had  become  ad- 


INTRODUCTORY  27 

joining  parts  of  the  counties  of  Johnston  and 
Orange. 

It  was  in  this  same  year  that  William  Tryon 
came  to  be  the  new  Royal  Governor  of  North 
Carolina,  and  the  colony  became  daily  more 
prosperous,  the  west  having  filled  up  as  stated, 
while  the  eastern  precincts  grew  rich  and  be- 
came refined  in  their  ideas  of  comfort  and  even 
luxury.  Those  eastern  folk  enjoyed  agricul- 
tural abundance  from  the  fertile  soil,  they 
plied  a  coastwise  trade,  and  owned  large  ships 
trading  to  Bermuda  and  even  to  English  sea- 
ports. Their  sons  were  sent  to  be  educated 
in  England  or  in  the  northern  colleges,  and  the 
leading  men  showed  "a  prevalence  of  excel- 
lent education"  although  there  were  no  col- 
leges and  few  schools  worth  the  name  in  all 
Carolina. 

The  different  levels  of  rank  were  as  well 
marked  in  the  east  as  in  Virginia  at  that  time, 
but  in  the  west,  in  Carolina,  as  in  western 
Virginia,  the  settlers  were  mostly  Presbyter- 
ians and  other  dissenters,  were  small  farmers, 
and  did  not  own  slaves,  which  were  always  the 
rule  for  working  the  broad  plantations  in  the 
tide-water  country. 


28  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

These  western  folk  were  often  pious,  but  If 
by  chance  some  one  was  careless  in  religion 
he  was  all  the  more  eager  for  liberty.  Pio- 
neers, and  the  sons  of  pioneers,  some  settled 
and  some  pressed  on,  piercing  the  wooded 
passes  of  the  mountains  and  faring  over  into 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  They  were  the 
second  generation  in  the  colony,  Americans 
born,  who  cared  nothing  for  the  King  and  the 
''Old  Home,"  but  rejoiced  to  find  the  whole 
boundless  continent  before  them.  Woods- 
men and  explorers  these,  like  Daniel  Boone, 
who  once  settled  for  a  little  time  in  western 
North  Carolina,  but  felt  himself  crowded 
when  he  could  see  smoke  from  a  neighbor's 
fire  closer  than  twelve  miles  of  wilderness 
away. 

This  was  the  Old  North  State  when  Tryon 
came  from  England  to  his  difficult  task,  that 
of  bending  the  pride  of  the  east,  and  subdu- 
ing the  independence  of  the  west,  and  thus 
governing  the  heterogeneous  mixture. 

Tryon  had  many  good  qualifications.  It  is 
certain  by  evidence  that  he  must  have  been 
a  fine  figure  of  a  man;  he  had  been  a  soldier; 
his  ability  was  far  above  average;  he  was  the 


INTRODUCTORY  29 

possessor  of  fine  tact,  reinforced  by  an  Iron 
will,  and  a  determination  to  govern  at  all 
costs.  His  first  problem  was  the  trouble 
about  the  stamp  tax  and  he  handled  the  news 
of  its  repeal  In  a  masterly  manner,  gaining 
from  it  the  full  advantage  in  behalf  of  the 
Royal  Government.  Also  he  cunningly  util- 
ized the  joy  and  good  humor  over  this  repeal 
as  an  opportunity  for  asking  money  to  build  a 
governor's  mansion  In  New  Berne,  then  the 
seat  of  government. 

When  we  think  of  the  dislike  of  all  America 
for  the  word  "taxes"  at  that  date,  and  when 
we  remember  how  unwilling  our  fathers  then 
were,  and  their  descendants  still  are,  to  spend 
money  for  governmental  show  and  glory, 
Tryon  is  in  this  matter  shown  to  be  a  com- 
manding and  astute  manager  of  men.  His 
ascendancy  over  the  lower  house  of  deputies, 
and  his  gaining  so  much  of  his  desires  from 
them  seem  little  short  of  marvelous. 

He  received  fifteen  thousand  pounds  in  all 
for  building  his  ''palace"  as  it  began  to  be  call- 
ed, and  when  this  was  finished  it  was  the  finest 
building  of  the  kind  in  all  America.  Tryon 
reconstructed    there,    as    best   he   could,    the 


30  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

English  ideal  of  polite  society,  and  held  social 
festivities  with  all  dignity  and  due  decorum; 
but  the  accomplishment  of  his  heart's  desire 
brought  him  a  thriving  crop  of  jealous  com- 
ment from  the  wealthy  planters  who  did  not 
relish  his  sitting  to  receive  them  in  his 
*'elbow  chair,"  nor  his  haughty  airs  in  his  fine 
house. 

As  to  the  western  farmers  in  their  log-cabins^ 
although  they  were  a  thousand  times  better 
off  than  their  brethren  of  the  English  country- 
side, and  though  they  did  not  call  themselves 
either  poor  or  miserable,  they  lived  hardily 
and  had  little  respect  for  luxury,  and  no  pa- 
tience at  all  with  what  seemed  to  them  sinful 
extravagance.  Moreover  they  had  a  set  of 
excellent  grievances.  They  justly  complained 
of  the  large  fees  for  the  grants  and  deeds  to 
their  land,  extorted  by  the  sheriffs  and  county 
clerks.  The  amounts  of  these  fees  are  not  set 
down  as  so  enormous,  but  the  King's  officers 
were  constantly  accused  of  over-charging,  and 
of  charging  twice  and  pocketing  the  difference. 
Also  these  dues  must  be  paid  in  real  money, 
of  which  there  was  very  little  in  circulation  in 
the  Colony  and  which  then  had  a  much  greater 
purchasing  power  than  now. 


INTRODUCTORY  31 

Thus  the  men  of  the  back  country  were  fer- 
menting with  a  spirit  of  obstinate  opposition 
to  constituted  authority,  while  taxes  were 
some  years  in  arrears.  That  there  was  op- 
pression and  abuse  seems  quite  certain,  and 
also  that  this  oppression  was  caused  by  the 
arbitrary  and  offensive  behavior  of  the  men 
in  charge  of  the  tax  collecting. 

Mingled  with  the  ever-growing  dislike  of 
their  tyranny  was  indignation  over  the  ex- 
pense of  building  that  great  fine  palace,  and 
added  to  that,  an  ill-defined  irritation  against 
what  we  might  call  pernicious  high-brow-ism 
in  some  of  the  more  prominent  officials,  es- 
pecially Edmund  Fanning  and  John  Frohock. 

Fanning  was  called  Tryon's  son-in-law,  but 
authority  for  that  is  wanting.  He  was  a 
graduate  of  Harvard  College  and  a  man  tact- 
less and  arrogant,  who  felt  and  showed  con- 
tempt for  these  frontier  folk.  The  hatred  that 
centered  upon  him  cannot  be  accounted  for  in 
any  other  way.  Not  one  voice  has  been  raised 
in  vindication  of  his  doings  until  more  than 
a  hundred  years  had  passed  since  he  left 
North  Carolina.  The  sting  of  disdain  out- 
lasts blows  and  injuries  In  the  memory,  and 


32  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Fanning  and  Frohock  were  so  hated  that  they 
became  the  subjects  of  the  first  popular  bal- 
lads native  to  North  Carolina,  mere  prose  not 
expressing  the  strong  feelings  of  the  people 
against  them,  and  an  ante-Revolutionary 
"Hymn  of  Hate"  being  necessary. 

The  Governor  went  to  the  western  part  of 
the  State  In  1770  to  compose  the  trouble  that 
was  brewing  there,  which  was  the  beginning 
of  what  Is  called  the  Regulators  War,  but 
he  does  not  seem  to  have  gone  to  the  root  of  the 
matter.  He  simply  told  the  people  to  be 
good,  and  while  he  had  Fanning  tried,  allowed 
him  to  be  white-washed  and  fined  only  a 
penny  for  each  of  the  extortions  as  proven. 
Tryon  could  not  read  the  signs  of  the  times 
and  left  discontent  behind  him. 

The  Regulators  were  full  of  bitterness.  It 
was  a  feeling  rather  than  a  reasoned  opinion. 
The  War  of  the  Regulation,  as  It  seems  to  our 
partial  Information,  was  the  rising  of  a  ground- 
swell  of  Democracy. 

It  bore  some  analogy  to  the  spirit  of  oppo- 
sition which  has  sometimes  possessed  the 
mountain  folk  of  our  own  and  adjoining  states 
when  they  thought  of  revenue  collectors  and 
United  States  revenue  officers. 


INTRODUCTORY  33 

Mr.  Frank  Nash  has  called  this  ''political 
near-sightedness"  In  one  of  his  historical 
papers,  and  that  expresses  the  condition  better 
than  any  other  phrase. 

The  backwoodsman  who  had  traveled  far 
and  subdued  a  bit  of  the  wilderness  for  his 
own,  wished  to  be  let  alone  in  possession  of 
what  he  had  so  hardly  won.  He  had  fought  and 
fended  for  himself  against  crude  nature  and 
savage  foes,  had  made  his  clearing  and  built 
his  cabin  with  unaided  arm.  He  could  scarce- 
ly acknowledge  the  right  of  any  one  to  dictate 
to  him.  Like  the  Irishman  who  said  he  owed 
nothing  to  posterity  by  reason  that  posterity 
had  never  been  of  any  benefit  to  him,  the 
frontiersman  considered  talk  of  this  govern- 
ment, and  of  taxes  owing  to  it,  quite  imperti- 
nent, while  the  British  throne  and  the  king 
over  the  water  had  no  sentimental  appeal  to 
him. 

His  case  was  parallel  to  that  of  the  moun- 
taineer who  finds  a  far-away  government  lay- 
ing hands  upon  his  home-made  whiskey.  He 
has  made  it  out  of  his  own  corn,  which  he  has 
often  cultivated  by  hand  on  a  hillside  too 
steep  to  plough,  and  he  knows  that  this  indul- 


The  old  sassafras  tree  ox  the  Capitol  Square   still 

ALIVE  IN    1922.     From  this  famous  "deer  stand"  forty 

head  of  deer  were  shot  by  one  hunter,  within  the 

memory  of  those  alive  in  1800. 


INTRODUCTORY  35 

gence  Is  denied  him  by  an  outside  Influence 
and  not  of  his  own  consent. 

No  brief  Is  held  for  the  moonshiner,  but 
who  can  not  understand  the  point  of  view  of 
the  Ignorant  mountaineer?  Our  frontiersman 
reasoned  much  In  the  same  way,  and  his  fees 
and  taxes  seemed  enormous  to  him,  and  In- 
deed were  so,  measured  by  his  ability  to  pay 
in  real  money. 

It  was  In  1771  when  Tryon  returned  west 
with  the  eastern  militia  to  quell  this  distur- 
bance In  Orange  and  Rowan,  which  grew 
daily  more  severe,  and  it  was  in  that  very 
year  that  Wake  County  came  Into  existence. 
The  Regulators  were  most  active  in  Orange 
and  Rowan,  and  the  best  opportunity  for 
getting  together  and  talking  politics  was  then 
even  more  than  It  Is  now,  court  week,  for 
that  was  the  only  time  when  the  whole  settle- 
ment turned  out  in  a  general  manner. 

Tryon  thought  It  would  be  a  good  thing  to 
divide  the  counties,  and,  so  doing,  divide  the 
courts  and  prevent  so  general  a  free  discus- 
sion. He  therefore  influenced  his  council  to 
set  off  four  new  counties,  Guilford,  Chatham, 
Surry,  and  Wake,   as  a  measure  for  dividing 


36  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Up  the  Regulators  and  silencing  their  general 
discussions.  The  reason  given  in  the  enact- 
ment, however,  is  one  of  distance  and  greater 
convenience  in  attending  court.  This  meas- 
ure was  signed  by  Tryon  in  the  spring  of  1771. 

In  the  record  of  the  expedition  of  that  same 
spring  against  the  Regulators,  we  find  Tryon 
camped  at  Hunter's  Lodge,  the  home  of 
Theophllus  Hunter  in  Wake  County,  and  said 
to  have  been  about  four  miles  from  the  present 
southern  boundary  of  the  City  of  Raleigh. 

It  is  also  of  record  that  the  (Ramsgate) 
Rhamkatt  Road  was  laid  off  through  the 
woods  towards  Hillsborough  so  as  to  avoid  the 
rough  hills  of  the  Granville  Tobacco  Path,  in 
hastening  Tryon's  military  wagons. 

We  also  note  that  the  sign  and  countersign 
of  one  of  those  days  of  delay  in  camp  at  Hunt- 
er's Lodge,  as  they  waited  for  recruits,  were 
the  words  "Wake"  and  ^'Margaret,"  which 
suggests  strongly  the  origin  of  the  name  of  the 
new  county.  The  maiden  name  of  the  Gov- 
ernor's lady  was  Margaret  Wake,  and  the 
new  county  might  well  have  been  named  for 
her,  especially  as  the  parish  was  named  St. 
Margaret's,   after  her   baptismal   name.     Es- 


INTRODUCTORY  37 

ther  Wake,  that  lovely  vision  whose  tradition 
Is  so  persistent,  cannot  be  absolutely  proved 
to  be  more  than  an  Imagination  of  the  gallant 
Shocco  Jones.  She  probably  existed,  but  we 
cannot  be  certain  of  It  now,  and  the  name 
Wake  Is  easily  accounted  for  without  her  aid. 
It  has  very  recently  been  noted  that  in 
January,  1771,  "the  Honorable  Miss  Wake" 
gave  two  pounds  sterling  for  the  founding  of  a 
minister  and  teacher  for  the  German  settle- 
ment. This  shows  Esther  a  very  kindly, 
lovely  girl. 

Wake  County  was  carved  out  of  Orange  for 
the  most  part,  and  included  also  a  bit  of  John- 
ston and  a  little  of  Cumberland.  In  making 
of  new  counties  around  It  later,  it  lost  part  of 
its  first  extent;  but  it  was  then,  as  now,  the 
midmost  county  between  the  low  country 
and  the  mountains,  and  Is  approximately 
central  between  the  Virginia  line  and  the 
boundary  of  South  Carolina.  It  is  the  level 
where  the  long-leaved  pines  of  the  lower 
lands  yield  to  forests  of  hardwood  trees,  and  the 
sandy  soils  pass  definitely  Into  red  clay.  Its 
wonderful  diversity  of  products  is  directly  re- 
ferable to  this  variety  of  soil,    and  the  two 


INTRODUCTORY  39 

edges  of  the  county,  eastern  and  western,  are 
as  distinct  as  though  a  hundred  miles  separat- 
ed their  boundaries. 

The  first  ridges  of  any  regularity  of  extent 
which  cross  the  State  from  north  to  south,  the 
first  ripples  of  those  folds  which  rise  into  the 
great  Blue  Ridge,  cross  Wake  County.  Al- 
most all  varieties  of  soil  not  strictly  alluvial 
are  found  in  some  part  or  another  of  Wake, 
and  indeed  there  is  often  the  greatest  differ- 
ence in  the  constitution  of  the  soil  of  different 
sides  of  the  same  field.  The  climate  also  is 
about  the  medium  between  the  damp  of  the 
east  and  the  keen  light  air  of  the  mountain 
section.  Neuse  River  and  Its  tributary  creeks 
drain  and  water  it  well.  Raleigh,  the  Capital 
of  the  State  for  more  than  a  hundred  years, 
occupies  almost  a  central  point  In  the  County, 
and  has  been  until  now  the  only  large  town 
of  the  County. 


CHAPTER  II 
The  First   Twenty-five    Years 

ROM  Theophilus  Hunter's  in 
Wake  County,  Tryon  marched 
direct  to  the  Battle  of  Alamance, 
where  the  Regulators  were  beat- 
en, their  army  dispersed,  and  six 
of  their  ringleaders  quickly  hung  for  treason. 
So  thorough  were  his  methods  that  all  ac- 
tive hostility  was  then  over.  But  although 
their  armed  resistance  was  quelled,  the  ''em- 
battled farmers"  of  North  Carolina  went  to 
their  homes  with  that  bewildered  feeling  of 
frustration  and  utter  disaster  that  left  them 
neither  self-confidence  for  future  attempt,  nor 
expectation  of  any  redress  for  their  crying 
grievances.  The  public  debt  which  Tryon 
incurred  in  this  expedition,  added  to  the  ar- 
rears bequeathed  to  him  by  his  predecessors, 
was  never  paid;  nor  would  it  have  been  easy 
to  collect  from  a  people  more  and  more  indig- 
nant, more  and  more  weaned  from  its  alleg- 
iance to  Great  Britain. 

The  New  England    Colonies   treading   the 
self-same  path,  sent  emissaries  to  North  Car- 

[40] 


THE    FIRST   TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS  41 

ollna  to  test  the  temper  of  Its  people,  and 
never  did  sentiments  of  liberty  meet  greater 
sympathy,  or  aspirations  for  Independent  ex- 
istence more  favor.  The  people  of  North 
Carolina  were  ripe  for  revolution.  Wrote 
Thomas  JeflFerson  at  this  time,  "There  Is  no 
doubtfulness  In  North  Carolina,  no  state  Is 
more  fixed  or  forward." 

In  this  year  of  transition  and  bitter  brood- 
ing was  held  the  first  court  In  the  new  County 
of  Wake,  and  w^e  know  who  located  the  coun- 
ty seat  at  Wake  Cross  Roads,  and  named  It 
Bloomsbury,  which  name  had  never  appeared 
before  in  this  place.  This  was  also  done  by 
the  Tryons,  and  the  name  of  Bloomsbury 
must  be  referred  to  them,  as  being  the  name 
of  a  new  suburb  of  London,  just  then  being 
"developed"  as  we  say  of  real  estate  ventures. 

Russell,  Earl  of  Bedford,  was  building  this 
part  of  London  on  a  portion  of  his  ancestral 
acres,  and  he  Is  said  also  to  have  been  re- 
sponsible In  some  way  for  Tryon's  appoint- 
ment as  Colonial  Governor.  Russell  Square, 
which  Is  so  often  mentioned  In  Thackeray's 
novel.  Vanity  Fair,  as  the  home  of  the  heroine, 
was  In  Bloomsbury,  and  Is  the  actual  name  of 


42  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

a  street  there.  This  name  must  have  meant 
something  of  home  and  London  to  the  Try- 
ons,  as  is  shown  by  their  giving  it  to  this  cor- 
ner of  the  wilderness.  Here  is  a  likely  con- 
nection. 

On  the  contrary,  we  cannot  see  any  reason 
why  Joel  Lane,  born  on  this  side  of  the  ocean, 
and  busy,  enterprising  wild-westerner  as  one 
might  call  him,  should  fancy  and  insist  upon 
the  name  of  Bloomsbury  more  than  any  other 
English  name.  He  probably  was  glad  to 
adopt  a  name  which  the  Governor  suggested 
for  his  tavern.  This  western  Bloomsbury  was 
a  mere  stopping  place  beside  the  Hillsborough 
Road,  and  the  first  court  was  held  in  the  resi- 
dence or  tavern  of  this  Joel  Lane,  already  one 
of  Wake  County's  most  prominent  citizens. 
There  was  a  jail  of  logs,  and  our  first  sherifi" 
was  named  Michael  Rogers.  Theophilus 
Hunter  was  a  justice,  and  so  were  Joel  Lane  and 
several  other  of  the  men  whose  names  occur 
first  on  the  records.  The  old  court  corres- 
ponded to  the  English  Quarter  Sessions  and 
has  been  long  superseded  by  the  later  con- 
stitutional arrangements  of  North  Carolina. 

There  still  stands,  in  the  western  part  of 
Raleigh,   a  rather   small   house   with  a   very 


THE    FIRST    TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS  43 

Steep  gambrel  roof,  In  the  style  of  architec- 
ture common  at  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  and  before,  called  the  Dutch 
Colonial.  This  house  used  to  face  Boylan 
Avenue,  standing  a  little  back  from  the  street, 
but  was  moved  a  few  years  ago,  and  now  faces 
the  south  side  of  Hargett  Street  near  the  State 
Prison. 

The  exact  year  of  its  erection  is  not  known, 
but  its  architecture  is  of  the  same  order  as 
that  of  the  house  at  Yorktown,  Virginia, 
where  Cornwallis  surrendered  to  General 
Washington. 

It  also  resembles  in  angle  of  roof  the  little 
"Andrew  Johnson  Birthplace"  which  stands 
restored  in  Pullen  Park,  and  another  historic 
house  at  Edenton,  where  was  held  the  Eden- 
ton  Tea  Party.  The  peculiar,  quite  steep 
slant  of  the  roof  over  the  second  story  has 
been  disused  in  more  modern  houses,  and 
serves  as  a  means  of  dating  the  erection. 

This  house  on  Hargett  Street  was  once 
known  as  the  "First  Capitol,"  and  was  built 
by  and  belonged  to  Joel  Lane.  It  may  well 
have  been  new  at  the  time  we  are  describing 
It  was  considered  a  very  fine  house  in  its  day, 
and  is  called  the  "best  house  within  a  hundred 
miles." 


44  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Probably  those  same  old  walls  that  we  all 
have  seen  were  those  that  sheltered  the  first 
county  court,  and  there  Tryon  certainly 
stopped  on  his  return  from  the  military  ex- 
pedition against  the  Regulators.  It  could 
scarcely  have  been  built  during  the  troubled 
times  of  the  Revolution,  and  could  well  have 
been  in  existence  in  the  year  1772,  as  it  is  of 
record  that  it  was  in  1781. 

On  the  street  corner  near  to  its  first  situa- 
tion a  boulder  has  been  placed,  and  a  bronze 
tablet  let  into  its  side  bears  the  following  in- 
scription, placed  there  by  the  Daughters  of 
the  Revolution,  Bloomsbury  Chapter,  in  the 
year  1911. 

ON  AND  AROUND  THIS  SPOT  STOOD  THE  OLD  TOWN  OF 
BLOOMSBURY  OR  WAKE  COUNTY  COURT  HOUSE 

Which  was  erected  and  made  the  County  Seat 
WHEN  Wake  County    was    established 
IN  1771.    This  place  was  the  ren- 
dezvous OF  A  PART  OF  TyROn's 

Army  when    he    marched 
against   the    Regu- 
lators in  I 77 I 

Here  met  the  Revolutionary  Assembly  in  1781, 

AND    to    this    vicinity    WAS    REMOVED    THE 

State    seat   of      Government 
WHEN  the  Capital  City 
OF  Raleigh   was 
incorporated 
in  1782. 


THE    FIRST    TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS  45 

Tryon  and  his  lady  left  North  Carolina  in 
1771  for  New  York  State,  he  to  become  Gov- 
ernor there,  and  North  Carolina  never  saw- 
either  of  them  again.  It  Is  said  that  they 
were  glad  to  go  In  spite  of  having  to  leave  the 
fine  house  they  had  built  In  New  Berne,  be- 
cause the  climate  had  not  suited  their  health 
nor  the  spirit  of  the  colony  their  minds. 
When  the  Revolution  came  on,  Tryon  County 
in  the  west  was  promptly  divided  Into  Lin- 
coln and  Rutherford  and  the  Governor's 
name  thus  expunged  from  our  County  roll; 
but  the  name  of  Wake  spoke  neither  of  de- 
feat nor  oppression. 

Gallant  North  Carolina  would  not  flout  the 
Governor's  lady,  and  Wake  remained  the 
name  of  a  county,  and  shall  ever  remain  so 
called,  whether  named  originally  for  that 
lovely  shadow,  Esther  Wake,  or  for  her  fair 
sister,   Lady  Tryon. 

The  Revolution  called  on  every  man  to  rally 
to  his  colors.  Tories  were  plentiful  and  active 
in  North  Carolina.  The  former  Regulators 
strangely  did  not  come  to  the  help  of  the  Con- 
gress very  freely,  but  seem  to  have  been  cowed 
or  disgusted  with  fighting,    and  stood   aloof, 


46  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

not  enlisting  on  either  side.  The  Wake 
County  mihtia  volunteered,  and  from  the 
sparse  population  many  men  went  to  war. 
We  will  not  follow  these,  but,  remaining  at 
home,  will  mention  a  few  points  of  distinctly 
Wake  County  history. 

We  have  already  described  Joel  Lane's 
home,  called  the  'Tirst  Capitol,"  and  it  was 
there  that  the  General  Assembly  of  North 
Carolina  met  in  the  month  of  June,  1781. 
The  Capital  of  the  State  had  been  a  movable 
institution  for  some  time  previous,  being  ap- 
pointed to  meet  at  first  one  town  and  then 
another,  according  to  the  necessities  of  a 
country  at  war.  Records  were  thus  many  a 
time  lost,  and  it  is  wonderful  that  we  possess 
intact  as  many  as  we  do,  considering  the  dif- 
ficulty of  keeping  up  with  such  a  shifting 
capital.  As  a  measure  of  safety  perhaps, 
Wake  County  was  made  the  choice  of  this 
troubled  year,  almost  the  lowest  ebb  of  the 
American  cause.  At  this  meeting  Joel  Lane 
was  voted  the  sum  of  fifteen  thousand  pounds 
for  the  lodging  and  food  of  the  General  As- 
sembly and  the  pasturage  for  their  horses. 
His  guests   must  have  been   as   addicted   to 


THE    FIRST   TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS  47 

fried  chicken  as  the  preachers  are  accused  of 
being,  for  the  next  item  of  allowance  is  one  to 
Vincent  Vass,  *'for  candles  and  fowls"  eigh- 
teen hundred  pounds. 

These  are  not  such  great  sums  as  they 
sound,  for  the  colonial  currency  of  paper 
money  became  extremely  depreciated  as  the 
Revolution  went  on,  just  as  the  Confederate 
paper  money  did  years  afterward  in  the  war 
between  the  States;  and  by  this  time  it  was 
worth  no  more  of  its  face  value  than  is  in- 
dicated in  the  saying,  "not  worth  a  Continen- 
tal." 

A  good  horse  would  bring  twelve  hundred 
pounds  in  the  money  of  that  year,  and  we  may 
estimate  by  this  that  the  members  of  Assem- 
bly probably  had  no  more  chicken  than  they 
needed. 

Another  event  of  this  Wake  County  session 
of  the  Assembly,  much  more  noteworthy,  was 
the  inauguration  of  a  Governor  of  North  Caro- 
lina, which  was,  prophetically,  held  for  the  first 
time  in  Wake  County  inside  the  area  of  the 
future  capital  of  the  State,  while  as  yet  it  was 
not.  The  war-time  Governor  was  Thomas 
Burke  of  Orange  County,  and  the  announce- 


48  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

ment  of  his  election  to  the  Governor's  office 
was  formally  conveyed  to  him  at  the  tavern 
at  Wake  Court  House,  at  the  beginning  of 
this  first  Assembly  there  convened. 

His  speech  of  acceptance,  his  inaugural,  on 
that  occasion,  refers  to  the  difficulty  of  his 
task,  and  especially  mentions  the  activities 
of  the  Tories,  the  condition  of  the  colony  al- 
most verging  on  civil  war,  and  the  lack  of 
proper  support  from  the  people  to  the  State 
Government. 

Burke  was  a  well  educated  man,  and  had 
assisted  in  drafting  the  State  Constitution 
adopted  for  North  Carolina  at  the  time  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  at  Philadel- 
phia. He  was  an  Irishman  from  Galway  and 
a  Catholic,  but  although  he  lived  in  a  far  more 
intolerant  age  than  ours,  the  fact  of  his  relig- 
ious belief  was  never  mentioned  against  him. 
According  to  English  law,  which  was  the 
foundation  of  the  law  of  the  colonies,  none 
but  Protestants  could  hold  office,  and  of  Pro- 
testants only  Church  of  England  men.  In  the 
colonies,  however,  this  rule  had  already  been 
ignored  before  the  Revolution,  and  dissenters 
had  become  governors  of  North   Carolina 


THE   FIRST    TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS  49 

under  the  old  government.  No  one  now  asked 
anything  of  Governor  Burke  save  as  to  his 
patriotism. 

Burke  lived  near  Hillsborough,  and  was 
further  distinguished  as  being  the  very  first 
of  the  poets  In  this  State,  except  only  those 
nameless  ballad-makers  among  the  Regulators. 
His  further  adventures  are  of  Interest. 

In  September  of  that  same  year,  1781,  the 
Tories  under  David  Fanning  (a  name  of  bad 
odor,  but  no  relation  that  we  know  to  that 
Edmund  first  mentioned)  came  up  In  force 
from  the  southern  counties,  with  the  publicly 
avowed  aim  of  capturing  the  Governor  of 
North  Carolina. 

They  raided  Hillsborough,  then  called  the 
capital.  David  Fanning  was  a  native  of  Wake 
County,  and  a  Tory  bushwhacker;  he  knew 
the  lay  of  the  land.  His  band  surprised  the 
defenceless  village  of  Hillsborough  one  night, 
and  while  Burke  and  his  friends  seem  to  have 
been  expecting  them,  and  to  have  resisted  with 
spirit,  the  Tories  were  too  many  for  them,  and 
Burke  was  captured  and  carried  to  Wilming- 
ton, then  in  British  possession.  Thence  he 
was  taken  to  Sullivans,  and  later   to  James 


50  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Island  off  the  coast  of  South  Carolina.  Being 
held  imprisoned  by  the  expanse  of  ocean  about 
this  island,  he  was  set  free  on  parole  there. 
He  felt  most  unsafe,  his  life  being  threatened 
by  a  lawless  band  of  Tories  living  on  the  is- 
land, and  was  forced  to  hide  from  place  to 
place. 

Being,  as  he  said,  in  such  danger  of  his  life, 
he  broke  his  parole  and  escaped,  returning  to 
North  Carolina.  Arrived  there  he  immedi- 
ately resumed  his  office  as  Governor.  The 
leaders  of  the  army  and  of  civil  affairs  do  not 
seem  to  have  known  quite  what  to  do  about 
his  actions.  A  man  at  liberty  on  parole,  even 
though  supposedly  confined  by  the  limits  of 
an  island  and  who  had  broken  that  parole  to 
escape,  appeared  to  them  not  quite  an  hon- 
orable man,  much  less  a  hero,  and  as  such, 
unworthy  to  hold  the  office  highest  in  the 
state.  Burke,  however,  felt  himself  justified, 
and  showed  no  scruples  on  the  subject. 

On  April  the  twenty-second,  1782,  Burke 
having  at  last  found  that  the  sentiment  of 
the  people  and  the  Assembly  was  against 
him,  asked  of  his  own  accord  to  resign,  and 
the  Assembly  consented   with  great  alacrity. 


THE    FIRST    TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS  51 

The  name  of  Alexander  Martin  was  pro- 
posed to  supersede  Burke,  while  a  vote  of 
thanks  and  recognition  of  his  service  was  pass- 
ed to  permit  his  retiring  with  full  dignity. 

Burke  died  during  the  next  year  at 
Hillsborough,  his  home.  Burke  County,  North 
Carolina,  was  named  for  him,  not  for  the  other 
greater  Irishman,  Edmund  Burke,  who  gave 
expression  in  England  to  the  creed  of  American 
freedom.  Burke  Square,  where  our  Gover- 
nor's mansion  stands  today,  was  also  named 
for  him  and  no  other,  and  had  he  not  fallen 
upon  such  trying  times  and  puzzling  cir- 
cumstances, his  name  might  shine  undimmed 
by  even  a  bit  of  poor  judgment. 

It  has  always  appeared  to  the  careless 
reader  of  history  that  the  interval  between 
the  surrender  of  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown  and 
the  association  of  this  state  with  the  rest  of 
the  Union  was  an  eneventful  and  negligible 
time,  because  it  was  not  signalized  by  drama- 
tic events,  as  was  the  period  of  Revolutionary 
struggle  just  past. 

We  are  required  to  count  those  seven  or 
eight  years  long  years,  and  to  conceive  the 
various  perplexities  they  brought,  in  order  to 


52  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

see  what  a  risk  and  what  an  experiment  this 
government  of  ours  was  considered  at  first, 
and  how  many  new  questions  pressed  for  so- 
lution upon  the  leaders  everywhere,  especially 
upon  the  members  of  the  Constitutional  Con- 
vention of  Philadelphia. 

It  was  clear  enough  that  the  Articles  of 
Confederation  which  had  been  strong  enough 
to  unite  the  colonies  against  a  common  foe 
during  the  Revolution,  could  not  sufficiently 
hold  together  the  differing  interests  of  the 
different  states,  during  their  period  of  recov- 
ery from  the  damage  of  the  war.  It  was  to 
meet  those  new  internal  dangers  that  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  was  framed. 

Our  fathers  builded  better  than  they  knew. 
When  drawn  up,  the  Constitution  was  sub- 
mitted to  each  of  the  states  for  its  approval 
by  vote  of  its  representatives.  Nine  states, 
by  approving  the  articles,  would  make  the 
Constitution  valid  for  all.  North  Carolina 
summoned  her  Constitutional  Convention  to 
consider  the  new  Constitution  and  recommend 
any  amendments  considered  necessary  to  its 
adoption  by  herself. 

This  was  done,  and  those  amendments 
which  were  recommended  stand  mostly  em- 


THE    FIRST    TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS  53 

bodied  in  the  United  States  Constitution 
today,  all  four  being  concerned  with  personal 
and  states  rights,  which  were  not  considered 
sufficiently  guarded  in  the  first  draft,  to  satisfy 
our  individualistic  ideas  in  old  North  Carolina. 

At  the  second  Constitutional  Convention  in 
Fayetteville,  amendments  had  been  adopted 
by  the  Philadelphia  convention,  many  states 
had  already  ratified,  and  North  Carolina  was 
content  to  fall  into  the  procession.  This 
assembly  voted  to  ratify  the  Constitution  at 
once,  this  being  in  November,  1789,  and 
North  Carolina  being  next  to  the  last  state  to 
enter  the  Union.  This  is  all  general  history, 
but  what  makes  it  necessary  to  review  it  here 
is  the  fact  that  the  location  of  the  City  of 
Raleigh,  and  its  choice  as  our  permanent  capi- 
tal, was  mixed  and  sandwiched  in  with  the 
grave  and  searching  consideration  of  the 
Articles  of  Constitution.  This  was  because 
the  task  was  set  for  this  first  convention,  not 
only  of  criticising  and  later  ratifying  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  but  also  of 
choosing  a  proper  seat  of  government  or 
state  capital  for  North  Carolina. 

*'The  first  Constitutional  Convention  of 
North  Carolina  was  held  at  Hillsborough  on 


54  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

the  twenty-fifth  of  July,  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  1788,  in  the  thirteenth  year  of  the  in- 
dependence of  the  United  Colonies  of  America, 
in  pursuance  of  the  resolution  of  the  last 
General  Assembly,  for  the  purposes  of  deliber- 
ating and  determining  on  a  proper  form  of 
Federal  Government;  and  for  fixing  the  unal- 
terable seat  of  government  for  this  State." 

Thus  runs  the  opening  phrase  of  the  report 
of  this  convention.  A  full  delegation  was 
present,  five  from  each  county  represented 
the  best  minds  and  most  patriotic  hearts  of 
the  land.  The  delegation  from  Wake  con- 
sisted of  Joel  Lane,  Thomas  Hines,  Brittain 
Saunders,  James  Hinton  and  Nathaniel  Jones. 
Governor  Samuel  Johnson  presided  as  Gov- 
ernor of  the  Colony.  The  debate  of  the  de- 
legates shows  a  good  deal  of  opposition  to 
ratification  on  the  part  of  the  extreme  Jef- 
fersonians,  led  by  Willie  Jones  of  Halifax. 
The  second  part  of  their  task,  that  of  fixing 
an  "unalterable  seat  of  government"  was  at- 
tended with  many  jealousies  and  bickerings. 
This  is  a  matter  of  tradition  as  well  as  of  re- 
cord, and  even  mixed  into  the  conventional 
phrases  we  may  today  trace  bitter  rivalry  be- 


THE    FIRST    TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS  55 

tween  the  west  and  the  east,  between  one  town 
and  the  other.  Tradition  has  it  that  Wilhe 
Jones  was  a  master  at  log-rolling  and  took  a 
hand  for  his  friends  in  this  free-for-all  contest. 
The  first  motion  making  this  business  the 
order  of  the  day  was  made  by  Mr.  Rutherford 
of  Rowan,  seconded  by  Mr.  Steele,  his  col- 
league, also  of  Rowan.  "Resolved,  that  this 
Convention  tomorrow  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  fix  on  a  proper  place  for  the  seat  of 
government." 

This  resolution  was  passed  but  protested 
against  by  Mr.  Blount  of  Beaufort  County. 
Next  day,  accordingly,  a  committee  was  se- 
lected to  choose  places  for  the  Convention  to 
vote  upon  in  turn  "Exact  spot  not  to  be  fixed, 
but  that  it  be  left  to  the  discretion  of  the 
Assembly  to  ascertain  the  exact  spot;  provided 
it  be  within  ten  miles  of  the  point  or  place  de- 
termined by  this  Convention." 

This  defined  indefiniteness  is  accounted  for 
by  considering  that  the  provision  was  made  in 
order  to  prevent  the  speculation  in  land  that 
could  suddenly  be  brought  to  pass  if  the  spot 
should  be  more  definitely  located.  Besides, 
we  may  consider  that  conditions  as  to  water 


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^:  w 

I— »  CO 

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THE    FIRST    TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS  57 

and  water  courses,  and  levels  and  slopes 
were  not  entirely  known,  and  room  for  ad- 
justment would  be  afforded  in  a  twenty-mile 
diameter. 

The  following  places  were  voted  on  by  the 
Convention.  Smithfield,  Tarborough,  Fay- 
etteville.  The  Fork  of  Haw  and  Deep  Rivers, 
Mr.  Isaac  Hunter's  Plantation  in  Wake 
County  (placed  in  nomination  by  Air.  Ire- 
dell of  Chowan),  New  Berne,  Hillsborough. 

On  ballot  Mr.  Isaac  Hunter's  plantation 
in  Wake  County  was  fixed  on  for  the  future 
location  of  the  Capital  in  its  immediate 
neighborhood.  This  vote  was  taken  on  Au- 
gust second,  1788. 

Willie  Jones  of  Halifax  (being,  as  a  living 
man  an  astute  politician,  and  none  the  less 
still  to  be  reverenced  as  one  of  our  constructive 
statesmen  so  long  after  his  death),  seems  to 
have  moved  on  the  stormy  waters  at  this  junc- 
ture, and  to  have  shaped  things  to  his  mind. 

Just  why  he  wished  to  locate  the  Capital 
in  Wake,  and  why  he  moved  in  such  myster- 
ious ways  to  that  end,  the  terse  record  does 
not  show;  but  tradition  insists  that  he  did  a 
good  deal  of  the  dealing,  and  as  we  are  too  far 


./ 


58  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

down  the  river  of  time  to  review  his  conclus- 
ions, we  will  just  be  satisfied  with  the  result, 
and  be  glad  he  made  so  good  a  selection,  using 
his  so  great  Influence  to  bring  it  about.  From 
out  the  past  comes  a  whisper  about  the  recipe 
which  he  used  for  apple  toddy,  and  about 
supper  at  Joel  Lane's  tavern.  Surely  they 
slander  the  city's  founders  who  repeat  this 
old  story!  Scarcely  was  the  vote  counted 
when  Mr.  Barry  Grove  of  Fayetteville  entered 
a  protest  on  the  following  grounds :  "First, 
because  the  situation  chosen  Is  unconnected 
with  commerce  and  can  never  rise  above  the 
degree  of  a  village.  The  same  mistake  has 
been  made  in  the  selection  of  Wllllamsburgh 
and  of  Annapolis,  and  the  result  is  seen  there. 
Secondly,  because  Fayetteville  would  have  a 
great  effect  upon  commerce,  being  a  thriving 
town  at  the  head  of  navigation." 

This  protest  was  signed  with  one  hundred 
nineteen  names,  and  would  indicate  that  the 
opposing  factions,  though  strong,  did  not  get 
together  quite  early  enough  to  thwart  Mr. 
Jones  or  accomplish  their  own  wish. 

The  west  wanted  Fayetteville  or  Hills- 
borough; the  eastern  section  was  divided,  each 


THE    FIRST    TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS  59 

delegate  wanting  the  chief  town  of  most  con- 
venient location  in  his  own  immediate  neigh- 
borhood ;  and  rather  than  vote  for  a  rival  town 
would  vote  for  a  western  place,  by  this  means 
restraining  the  rival  from  profiting. 

Thus  the  vote  being  so  close  and  so  doubt- 
ful, a  committee  was  appointed  to  report  later 
upon  this  matter,  when  the  constitutional 
convention  should  meet  at  Fayetteville  the 
next  year. 

Accordingly,  in  the  autumn  of  1789,  the 
Convention  ratified  the  United  States  Con- 
stitution with  far  less  wordy  war  than  they 
had  expended  upon  the  question  of  a  site 
for  the  capital  the  year  before.  The  com- 
mittee which  was  to  report  upon  the  matter 
of  the  seat  of  government  was  not  ready  at  that 
time  and  made  its  recommendations  two  years 
later,  by  which  time  all  the  tumult  and  shouting 
had  finally  died,  and  the  matter  was  settled 
once  for  all  in  favor  of  the  Wake  County  site. 

Fayetteville  still  felt  aggrieved  and  said  so, 
and  her  indignation  was  reasonable  enough, 
but  such  compromises  are  very  often  made. 

Perhaps  we  should  be  justified  in  raising  a 
statue  to  the  memory   of  that  great  Jefi^er- 


|»^Ci^fe. 


THE    FIRST   TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS  61 

sonian,  Willie  Jones,  as  the  real  founder  of 
Raleigh,  for  to  his  interest  the  actual  parcel- 
ing out  seems  due.  Nine  commissioners  were 
given  the  task  of  laying  off  ground  for  the 
new  city,  and  selecting  for  that  purpose  among 
the  various  tracts  offered. 

The  names  of  the  commissioners  were 
James  Martin,  Hargett,  Dawson,  McDowell, 
Blount,  Harrington,  Bloodworth,  Person,  and 
Willie  Jones,  and  while  all  did  not  actually 
ride  over  the  various  lands,  all  have  their 
names  perpetuated  in  the  names  of  streets  of 
Raleigh. 

Joel  Lane's  tract  was  chosen,  and  a  thous- 
and acres  of  land  bought  from  him.     Part  of 
this  land  was  originally  Mr.  Lane's,  but  part 
belonged  to  Theophilus  Hunter  of  Hunter's 
Lodge,  was  sold  by  him  to  Mr.  Lane  a  short 
time  before,   and  was  bargained  for  by  the 
commissioners  as  part  of  the  Lane  tract.     The 
original  Lane  land  ended  at  Morgan  Street 
and  all  south  of  that  line  was  Mr.  Hunter's. 
This  purchase  is  the  greater  part  of  the  land 
where  the  city  of  Raleigh  now  stands.     At 
that  time  it  was  covered  with  primeval  forest, 
and  some  old  oaks  are  still  standing  which 


62  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

must  have  shaded  the  surveyors  who  run  off 
the  streets  and  carved  our  city  squares  out  of 
the  virgin  wilderness. 

On  Friday  March  thirtieth,  1792,  the 
final  decision  was  made,  and  boundaries  locat- 
ed. The  price  paid  to  Lane  for  the  whole 
tract  of  land  was  two  thousand  seven  hundred 
fifty  dollars,  which  does  not  sound  like  a  fancy 
price  for  a  selected  square  mile  of  land. 

William  Christmas  was  the  surveyor,  and 
was  paid  one  hundred  ten  dollars  for  his  work 
after  he  had  finished  laying  out  substantially 
the  same  streets  and  squares  that  we  tread 
in  our  daily  walk  at  this  date. 

The  Capitol  Square  is  the  largest,  in  the 
center  of  the  city.  Four  other  squares  were 
left  open  to  form  parks,  and  named  Caswell, 
Nash,  Burke,  after  the  three  Governors  of 
those  names,  while  the  fourth  was  called 
Moore,  after  the  first  Attorney  General,  who 
afterwards  became  Associate  Justice  of  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court.  Streets  were 
named  after  Stephen  Cabarrus,  William  Le- 
noir, William  R.  Davie,  and  Joel  Lane,  be- 
sides the  commissioners  as  named  above. 
The  streets  which  ended  at  Capitol  Square, 


THE    FIRST    TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS  63 

and  those  bounding  It  were  named  after  the 
leading  towns  of  the  state  at  that  time— 
Hillsborough,  Fayettevllle,  Halifax,  New 
Berne,  Salisbury,  Edenton,  Wilmington,  ex- 
cept  Morgan,  which  is  named  for  what  was 
then  a  judicial  district. 

One  wonders  why  there  was  not  a  Charlotte 
Street,  according  to  the  plan.  Fayettevllle 
Street  was  at  one  time  afterwards  known  as 
LaFayette  Street,  but  the  change  has  not  per- 
sisted. 

Raleigh  was  born   a  city.     No  wandering 
pre-hlstoric    cows    laid    out    her    streets    and 
marked  her  thoroughfares,   as  was  the  case 
with  older  settlements.     Her  name  was  ready 
for  her  two  hundred  years  before,  and  was  be- 
stowed at  the  suggestion  of  Governor  Alex- 
ander xMartin,  and  her  charter  had  been  grant- 
ed in  1587  when  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  attempted 
a  permanent  settlement  on  Roanoke  Island. 
This   historic  name  was  inevitably  hers.     It 
was  the  only  name  that  could  have  been  given 
with  propriety  to  a  capital  of  North  Carolina. 
The  Infant  city  stood  clothed  in  forest,  with 
streets    blazed    among   the   trees.      The   four 
avenues  which  ended  at  the  Capitol  Square, 


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THE    FIRST    TWEXT^'-FIVE    YEARS  65 

then  named  Union  Square,  were  much  broader 
than  the  rest,  and  the  only  criticism  we  can 
offer  to  the  worthy  committee  who  laid  out 
our  town  is  that  they  might  have  made  all 
the  streets  as  wide,  seeing  that  land  was 
cheap  and  paving  unknown.  It  is  not  wonder- 
ful that  no  vision  of  automobile  traffic  and 
street  railway  system  visited  their  minds,  but 
they  did  show  a  great  foresight  in  giving  us  a 
park  system,  foresight  which  their  descend- 
ants have  done  their  best  to  nullify,  for  in  our 
great  economy  we  have  built  up  two  of  these 
four  squares  which  were  left  open  for  us  and 
for  our  children,  and  we  shall  always  have 
to  keep  repenting  our  short-sightedness. 

After  the  City  of  Raleigh  was  thus  laid  out 
and  named,  lots  were  sold  to  pay  for  the 
building  of  a  State  House.  The  commission 
who  attended  to  this  were  R.  Bennehan, 
John  Macon  (brother  of  Nathaniel  Macon), 
Robert  Goodloe,  Nathaniel  Bryan,  and  Theo- 
philus  of  Hunter's  Lodge. 

The  architect  of  the  first  Capitol  was  Rhody 
Atkins,  whose  name  was  not  again  mentioned. 
The  floor  plan  was  quite  similar  in  form  to  the 
present  building,  but  much   smaller,  plainer, 


66  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

and  built  of  rough  brick.  The  brick  was 
burned  for  the  building  on  lots  138  and  154  of 
the  original  survey. 

The  old  Capitol  turned  its  back  on  Hills- 
borough street.  It  faced  the  east  according  to 
the  custom  of  many  another  public  building 
erected  at  that  epoch.  It  cost  the  State  of 
North  Carolina  twenty  thousand  dollars  when 
complete,  and  was  enough  enclosed  in  1794 
so  that  the  Legislature  met  that  year  for  the 
first  time  in  the  "New  State  House"  in  the 
City  of  Raleigh. 

The  members  of  assembly  boarded  in  the 

neighboring  farm  houses  and  at  Joel  Lane's 

tavern,  and  rode  in  to  their  work  each  day  on 

horse-back.     Scarcely    anyone    lived    as    yet 

in  the  limit  of  the  city  proper.     The  State 

House  stood  in  solitude,   surrounded  by  its 

mighty  oaks  for  the  most  part  of  the  first  de- 

I  cade.     Raleigh    was    like    any    other    town 

I  created  by  legislative  act,  crude  and  strug- 

[gling  at  first. 

Washington  was  the  same  kind  of  capital 
on  a  far  larger  scale;  but  both  have  long  out- 
grown their  awkward  age. 


CHAPTER  III 
Early  ff^orthies 

IFE  just  after  the  Revolution  was 
a  much  simpler  manner  of  exist- 
ence than  it  is  now,  especially  as 
regards  worldly  possessions.  In 
1800,  there  were  but  ten  thous- 
and people  in  all  Wake  County,  and  many  of 
these  were  negro  slaves,  although  not  so  many 
servants  were  thought  necessary  in  proportion 
to  the  white  folk  as  it  was  customary  to  hold 
in  the  eastern  counties  where  the  lowland 
climate  made  agricultural  labor  difficult  for 
Caucasians. 

The  names  of  the  most  prominent  citizens 
of  Wake  County  in  the  last  days  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  and  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth were  the  same  surnames  which  usually 
occur  in  the  meager  records  of  assemblies  and 
conventions  of  the  early  pre-revolutionary 
time.  These  fathers  as  members  and  as  del- 
egates showed  much  practical  sense  and  won- 
derful comprehension  of  public  questions; 
they  were  also  possessors  of  many  a  fertile  acre 
of  uncleared  forest;  their  spirit  was  that  of  the 


68  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

eager  pioneer  whose  prospects  were  fair  before 
him,  but  whose  present  possessions  did  not 
hamper  him  enough  to  become  a  daily  care. 

The  Importance  of  the  cotton  crop  was  not 
yet  apparent.  Whitney's  cotton  gin  was  not 
yet  Invented,  and  the  four  or  five  pounds  of 
cotton  which  one  person  could  laboriously  seed 
In  a  day,  would  not  afford  so  much  lint  as  was 
needed  for  home  consumption.  Those  were 
the  days  of  the  small  cotton  patch  planted  to 
supply  the  spinning  wheel  and  loom,  and  each 
child  and  every  servant  of  the  home  must 
seed  his  shoe  full  of  cotton,  each  winter  even- 
ing before  going  to  bed,  as  his  regular  task. 

Tobacco  was  the  crop  which  brought  In 
money  or  exchange.  It  exhausted  the  new 
land  very  quickly,  and  was  hard  to  transport 
over  the  rough  roads  of  the  settlements,  but 
it  was  nevertheless  an  all-Important  means  of 
paying  for  any  Imported  goods,  and  a  regular 
medium  of  exchange  In  North  Carolina  as  for- 
merly also  in  Virginia.  Much  of  what  we 
read  in  that  time  before  railroads,  about  the 
prime  Importance  of  locating  the  towns  upon 
rivers,  was  considered  true,  because  it  was  an 
easy  means  of  readily  transporting  tobacco  to 
a  good  market. 


EARLY    WORTHIES  69 

Wheat  was  raised  in  sufficiency  and  corn 
in  great  abundance.  The  response  of  the 
virgin  soil  was  wonderful  and  the  climate  was 
as  fine  then  as  now.  The  farmer  whose  family- 
did  not  live  in  plenty  was  a  man  who  would 
not  take  the  trouble  to  raise  the  food  he  could 
easily  cultivate.  Great  herds  of  pigs  roamed 
the  woods  and  lived  on  acorns  and  nuts,  half 
wild,  only  coming  at  intervals  to  be  fed  a  little 
corn  when  they  heard  the  shrill  halloo  of  the 
slave  whose  duty  it  was  to  look  after  them. 
Cattle,  too,  roamed  the  woods  and  were  only 
a  little  more  tame,  coming  up  to  be  milked  as 
they  chose. 

All  the  house  work  halted  when  the  bell- 
cow's  jangling  bell  was  heard  in  the  clearing, 
and  the  women  quickly  went  to  milk  the  herd, 
whatever  the  hour  of  day. 

Houses  were  small  and  simple,  log-cabins 
well  or  ill-built,  single  or  double,  and  all  chairs 
and  small  furnishings  were  home-made.  Only 
now  and  then  was  there  some  prized  chest  or 
high-boy  which  had  been  brought  from  the 
last  station  of  the  pioneer  family,  or  even 
from  old  England  direct. 

Vehicles  were  confined  to  wagons  and  gigs, 
and  a  family  carriage  was  as  much  of  a  rarity 


70  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

in  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  as 
an  automobile  was  in  the  latest  ones.  Ladies 
rode  pillion,  behind  their  men  or  their  servants, 
or  singly  if  attended.  Everyone  expected  to 
ride  horseback  as  well  for  a  long  journey  as 
for  a  short  one. 

Hunting  and  fishing  were  the  chief  sports, 
but  racing  was  universal  in  a  country  so  de- 
pendent as  this  upon  good  and  spirited  horses; 
but  there  seems  to  have  been  no  regular  race- 
track in  Wake  County  at  this  early  date. 
Shooting  matches  for  beef  were  held  and  con- 
ducted much  like  the  famous  match  described 
in  "Georgia  Scenes."  Cock-fighting  was  a 
common  sport,  the  taste  for  which  came  from 
England  with  the  Colonists.  Wherever  a  few 
people  could  gather  from  the  thinly  settled 
neighborhoods,  they  enjoyed  dancing  and 
fiddling,  and  such  amusements  were  partici- 
pated in  by  young  and  old  alike. 

As  to  the  look  of  the  country,  we  know  that 
the  forest  and  the  old  field  bore  such  a  great 
proportion  to  the  cultivated  cleared  land  that 
farms  were  far  apart.  Only  here  and  there 
did  a  home  stand  out  against  a  wooded  slope, 
here  and  there  a  slim  spiral  of  smoke  betray  a 


EARLY    WORTHIES  71 

human  habitation  behind  the  trees,  or  a  clear- 
ed field  show  the  work  of  the  settler.     Roads 
wound  for  miles  through  unbroken  woodland, 
and  the  cultivated  fields  seemed  but  patches. 
This  life  was  not  a  poor  one,  although  it  was 
extremely  simple.     It  was  independent,  it  was 
self-respecting.     It  was  full  of  rude  plenty  and 
wholesome  work,   of  hope   and   expectation. 
A  poor  man  could  make  a  start  and  be  sure  of 
getting  a  living  while  paying  for  his  land.     He 
would  raise  a  little  stock  and  a  pair  of  colts. 
His  log-cabin  cost  him  little  beside  the  time  he 
took  to  build  it,  and  he  need  never  go  without 
his  simple  food  and  clothing  and  his  necessities 
provided  that  he  was  a  good  shot,  and  that  he 
and  his  wife  were  industrious.     Slavery  light- 
ened  the  tasks  of  those  who  could  get  far 
enough  ahead  of  the  world  to  afi^ord  the  pur- 
chase of  a  servant  or  two.     With  all  its  faults 
it  was  a  life  which  had  an  upward  slope  to  it, 
and  a  hopefulness  for  the  future  which  kept  it 
stimulating. 

There  were  practically  no  schools  in  Wake 
County  for  the  first  years  of  its  existence,  and 
after  the  Capitol  stood  lonely  on  its  hill  in  the 
midst  of  the  new  City  of  Raleigh.     At  various 


72  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

cross-roads  were  taverns  where  men  met. 
Court  week  called  them  to  Raleigh  sometimes, 
and  occasionally  a  preacher  passed  through 
and  services  were  held;  but  the  children  were 
mostly  left  to  home  instruction  and  to  the 
educating  influence  of  practical  experience  and 
the  many  absorbing  interests  of  their  back- 
woods homes  and  their  free  life  in  the  open. 

The  leading  spirits  were  not  satisfied  with 
this  state  of  things,  however.  There  were  a 
few  men  of  education  and  refinement  in  Wake 
County  from  the  first,  and  all  these  were  prom- 
inent in  the  State  history  and  politics  of  their 
day. 

The  first  name  that  appears  in  the  Colonial 
Records  showing  active  service  and  prominence 
in  the  new  county  of  Wake  was  John  Hinton, 
who  lived  on  Neuse  River  near  Milburnie. 
He  owned  enormous  tracts  of  land  along  the 
Neuse  under  grant  from  Lord  Carteret,  and 
when  in  course  of  time  Wake  County  was 
divided  from  Johnston  County,  his  residence 
fell  within  its  boundaries.  His  residence  was 
called  Clay-Hill-on-the-Neuse. 

He  had  moved  from  Chowan  (the  part  now 
Gates  County),  about  the  middle  of  the  eigh- 


EARLY    WORTHIES  IZ 

teenth  century,  and  his  father's  name  before 
him  was  John  Hinton.     He  married  Grizelle 
Kimbrough,  and  had  eight  or  nine  children 
who    reached    maturity.     John    Hinton    was 
Major  in  the  provincial  troops  of  Johnston 
County,  and  was  thus  called  to  aid  Governor 
Tryon  in  the  expedition  against  the  Regula- 
tors.    He   was   made    Colonel   of   the    Wake 
County  troops  in  1771,  and  was  In  command 
of  his  men  at  the  Battle  of  Alamance.     Gov- 
ernor Caswell  mentions  that  he  was  an  eye- 
witness of  Colonel  Hinton's  gallant  behavior 
on  this  occasion. 

Colonel  Hinton  lived  near  the  home  where 
his  descendants  still  live.  He  was  a  promi- 
nent man  in  the  Revolutionary  struggle,  of- 
fering himself  at  once  to  the  American  cause. 
He  served  in  the  first  Provincial  Congress  at 
New  Berne,  was  appointed  Colonel  of  North 
Carolina  troops,  was  present  at  the  Battle  of 
Moore's  Creek  Bridge,  was  a  member  of  the 
Council  of  Safety  for  Wake  County,  and  acted 
always  the  part  of  the  brave  patriotic  gentle- 
man he  was. 

He    died    in    1784,    leaving    several    minor 
children,  and  besides  his  own  personal  service 


74  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

two  of  his  sons  were  in  the  Revolutionary 
Army.  John  Hinton  the  third,  his  eldest, 
was  commissioned  as  Major,  and  James  Hin- 
ton was  Colonel  of  a  troop  of  horse. 

James  Hinton  above,  married  Delilah  Hunt- 
er, daughter  of  Theophilus  Hunter  of  Hunter's 
Lodge.  Two  of  the  daughters  of  Colonel 
Hinton  successively  became  wives  of  Joel 
Lane,  one  dying  quite  young.  Thus  the 
Hinton  family  was  connected  with  those  few 
other  families  which  seem  to  have  shared  with 
them  the  first  possession  of  the  broad  acres 
of  pristine  Wake  County  wilderness,  and  the 
moulding  of  the  little  community  by  their 
service  and  examples. 

The  descendants  of  these  people  are  here 
with  us  today,  and  their  blood  runs  in  the 
veins  of  many  who  never  have  traced  out 
their  pedigree  sufficiently  to  be  proud  as  they 
justly  may  be  of  their  fine  old  Revolutionary 
ancestry. 

Hinton  James,  the  first  student  that  regis- 
tered at  the  newly  opened  University  of  North 
Carolina,  and  another  Hinton  who  graduated 
with  him  in  the  first  class,  were  both  grand- 
sons of  Colonel  John  Hinton  of  Wake.     Judge 


EARLY    WORTHIES  75 

Henry  Seawell  married  a  daughter  of  John 
Hinton,  son  of  Colonel  John  HInton,  Second, 
the  first  of  the  name  to  settle  In  Wake. 

Theophllus  Hunter  of  Hunter's  Lodge  ap- 
pears first  as  the  host  of  Governor  Tryon,  and 
his  plantation  was  the  headquarters  of  the 
expedition  of  1771  during  Its  halt  of  several 
days  In  Wake  County.  It  was  at  his  planta- 
tion that  the  recruiting  was  done  for  Tyron's 
Army,  which  Is  recorded  as  having  been  so  slow 
and  so  unsatisfactory,  the  smaller  farmers 
holding  sympathy  with  the  Regulators. 

Theophllus  Hunter  the  elder  was  the  pre- 
siding justice  of  the  first  county  court  ever 
held  In  Wake  County,  and  when  the  first  court 
house  was  moved  from  Joel  Lane's  tavern, 
Wake  Cross  Roads,  or  Bloomsbury,  by  which- 
ever name  one  chooses  to  call  the  place,  to  Its 
present  site  on  Fayettevllle  street,  Theophllus 
Hunter  and  James  Bloodworth  each  conveyed 
half  an  acre  adjoining  to  the  then  justices  of 
Wake  County  and   their  successors  In  office 
forever,  for  the  nominal  sum  of  five  shillings; 
and  upon  this  piece  of  ground  the  new  court 
house  was  then  built,  and  successive  buildings 
have  occupied  the  same  lot. 


l(y  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

This  property  has  become  so  extremely  val- 
uable, that  some  time  since  there  was  an  Idea 
of  Its  being  sold,  and  some  land  purchased 
which  might  not  be  quite  so  valuable,  although 
quite  as  convenient  for  the  purpose.  Upon 
looking  into  the  old  deeds  it  was  found  that 
to  use  this  ground  for  any  other  purpose  be- 
side the  designated  one  of  locating  a  court 
house  upon  it,  would  forfeit  it  to  the  heirs  of 
the  givers. 

Besides  giving  a  lot  for  the  court  house, 
Theophilus  Hunter  also  gave  a  lot  for  a 
masonic  lodge.  This  lies  on  Morgan  and 
Dawson  streets,  Raleigh. 

Theophilus  Hunter,  besides  being  a  justice 
and  a  Mason,  was  a  Major  in  Colonel  John  Hin- 
ton's  Wake  County  Regiment  during  the  Rev- 
olution, afterwards  Lieutenant  Colonel,  Coun- 
ty Surveyor,  and  a  member  of  Assembly  sev- 
eral times.  He  left  a  family  of  sons  and 
daughters  who  married  Into  the  Hinton  and 
the  Lane  families  and  thus  drew  closer  the 
family  kinship  and  solidarity  of  the  first  fami- 
lies of  Wake  County.  He  lived  at  Spring 
Hill,  south-west  of  where  the  State  Hospital 
for  the  insane  now  is.     The  old  mansion  still 


i 


EARLY    WORTHIES  11 

remains  on  the  eminence  near  this  old  site,  re- 
built into  part  of  the  State  Hospital,  the  out- 
door colonies  for  epileptics  being  located  near 
the  spot.  His  son,  Theophilus,  Jr.,  inherited 
Spring  Hill  and  rebuilt  it.  The  landed 
possessions  of  these  men  were  extensive,  their 
land  reaching  almost  to  Cary  in  a  south- 
westerly direction.  Isaac  Hunter,  brother  of 
Theophilus,  Sr.,  owned  that  plantation  within 
ten  miles  of  which  Raleigh  should  be  located, 
and  his  place  was  to  the  north  of  the  city. 
Descendants  of  both  these  men  are  among  our 
citizens  today,  notably  the  brother  last  men- 
tioned has  many  although  none  of  his  own 
name,  the  inheritance  of  blood  having  gone 
through  the  female  lines. 

Theophilus  Hunter  Hill,  a  poet,  and  one  of 
our  few  singers,  was  a  grandson  of  the  Hunt- 
ers of  Spring  Hill.  At  the  very  beginning  of 
the  war  of  1861,  he  published  a  slender  volume 
of  lyrics  and  sonnets,  and  after  the  war  another 
volume. 

He  had  genuine  feeling  and  power  of  ex- 
pressing it,  and  several  sonnets  of  his  are  ex- 
quisite, but  for  the  most  part  his  poetry 
seems  an  echo  of  what  had  pleased  him  in  his 


78  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

wide  reading  of  other  men's  writings.  It  is 
not  racy  of  the  soil,  and  his  Images  are  acade- 
mic, but  he  shows  nevertheless  a  vein  of  real 
poetic  Inspiration  which  time  and  the  times 
did  not  develop  In  the  least,  the  stress  and 
strain  of  the  war  extinguishing  poetic  fancy, 
and  leisure  and  stimulation  both  being  lack- 
ing to  the  perfecting  of  his  gift. 

Joel  Lane  with  his  two  brothers,  Joseph  and 
Jesse,  who  were  not  so  well  known  as  himself, 
also  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  early 
shaping  of  Wake  County. 

O.  W.  Holmes,  in  a  humorous  poem,  de- 
scribing the  portrait  of  his  great-grandmother 
when  a  young  girl,  plays  with  the  idea  of  what 
might  have  been  the  result  if  that  dainty 
maiden  had  chosen  a  different  suitor,  when 
she  answered  'Yes'  to  her  life-mate,  and  thus 
had  thrown  the  stream  of  inheritance  into  a 
different  channel.     He  quaintly  asks, 

^'Should  I  be  /,  or  would  it  he 
One  tenth  another  and  nine  tenths  me?^^ 

In  similar  fashion  we  may  well  wonder  what 
would  have  been  the  differing  traits  In  the  like- 
ness of  the  good  people  of  Wake  County  If 


EARLY    WORTHIES  79 

busy  Joel  Lane  and  his  brothers  had  chosen 
another  path  through  the  wilderness,  and 
those  dozen  others  whose  blood  lives  today 
in  many  a  citizen,  "solid  and  stirring  in  flesh 
and  bone,"  had  settled  beside  some  other 
river. 

Joel  Lane,  who  helped  lay  out  the  boun- 
daries of  Wake  and  the  streets  of  our  city, 
land-owner,  mine  host  of  Bloomsbury  Tav- 
ern, Colonel  in  his  father-in-law's  Wake 
County  regiment,  purveyor  of  supplies  for 
the  Revolutionary  Army,  Associate  Justice  at 
Wake  County  Court  in  1771  and  for  many 
years  thereafter,  delegate  to  the  Provincial 
Congress  at  New  Berne,  member  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Safety  for  this  district.  State  Senator  for 
Wake  for  thirteen  sessions  of  the  Assembly,. 
planter,  speculator  in  real  estate,  did  not  let 
all  these  activities  exhaust  his  abundant  ener- 
gy. It  v/ould  not  take  many  citizens  such  as 
he  to  make  a  town  progressive  and  lively  even 
in  these  strenuous  days. 

He  seems  vividly  alive  to  the  mind  as  he  is 
exhumed  from  old  records  dusty  with  the 
passing  of  a  century.  His  nature  must  have 
been   kindly,   and   his   disposition   sunny,    to 


EARLY    WORTHIES  81 

have  made  him  so  universally  liked.  His 
house  we  have  all  seen,  and  it  looks  small  and 
plain  enough  to  us;  but  it  represented  to  the 
people  of  that  time  what  Governor  Swain  calls 
''a  rare  specimen  of  architectural  elegance." 
Joel  lived  in  this  well-known  house  of  his  in 
the  sense  of  the  often  quoted  words,  "by  the 
side  of  the  road,  to  be  a  friend  to  man;"  and 
in  turning  the  pages  of  the  records,  those  dry 
bones  of  history,  we  may  note  and  admire 
the  human  attraction  of  the  way  people  grav- 
itated to  his  tavern  for  their  various  meetings. 
It  must  have  been  pleasant  staying  there, 
which  speaks  well  for  the  character  of  mine 
host,  although  we  must  wonder  where  in  the 
world  he  took  care  of  so  many  legislators. 
Probably,  after  the  good  old  custom,  log-cabin 
"offices"  or  bachelor  quarters  flanked  the 
central  dwelling,  and  in  these  he  put  his 
gentlemen  guests.  Very  few  ladies  went 
traveling  in  those  days. 

Joel  Lane's  two  wives  were  both  daughters 
of  Colonel  John  Hinton,  who  lived  near  Neuse 
River,  and  they  brought  him  a  fine  colonial 
family  of  six  sons  and  six  daughters.  Joel 
always   adhered   to  the  Church   of  England. 


82  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

The  Lanes  are  descended  from  the  Ralph 
Lane  who  first  came  to  North  CaroHna  with 
the  unlucky  colony  in  1S8S,  and  then  sailed 
back  to  England  in  1586,  being  succeeded  as 
Governor  by  John  White  who  left  a  handful 
of  lonely  white  settlers  to  lose  themselves  in 
the  western  wilds,  and  become  one  of  the 
mysteries  of  fate  to  this  day.  The  spirit  of 
the  old  seafaring  Lanes  still  drove  him  "West- 
ward  Ho"  and  Ralph  returned  after  a  time. 
Joel  and  his  brothers  were  already  the  third 
generation  of  Lanes  born  in  the  American 
Colonies.  Their  descendants  have  half  pop- 
ulated Wake  County,  and  have  sent  good 
citizens  to  Alabama,  to  Tennessee,  to  Mis- 
souri, and  to  far  away  Oregon.  Among  them 
are  numbered  governors,  judges,  a  general 
and  a  vice-presidential  candidate,  a  cabinet 
officer,  too, — all  men  in  the  public  eye,  while 
they  have  also  furnished  scores  more  of  excel- 
lent folk  of  the  race  who,  while  not  so  con- 
spicuous, have  built  up  their  own  communities 
more  quietly  for  generations. 

Joel  Lane  has  been  criticised  because  his  sale 
of  land  for  the  location  of  Raleigh  seemed  a 
bit  of  sharp  practice  at  the   expense  of  his 


EARLY    WORTHIES  83 

father-in-law,  Colonel  John  Hinton,  who  also 
had  a  square  mile  of  land  for  sale;  it  is  even 
hinted  that  people  generally  resented  this  and 
that  it  cost  him  his  seat  in  the  Assembly  for 
the  next  term  thereafter.  These  hundred- 
year-old  rumors  are  hard  to  verify.  Let  us 
use  our  imagination  in  all  charity,  and  think 
that  he  knew  what  a  very  pleasant  home  for 
the  State's  central  government  would  result 
from  his  success. 

He  offered  a  square  mile  of  land  near  Cary 
as  a  free  gift,  should  it  be  decided  to  place  the 
University  of  North  Carolina  there,  and  one 
wonders  why  this  offer  was  not  accepted. 
He  was  one  of  the  first  Board  of  Trustees  of 
the  new  institution,  and  had  two  grandsons 
in  the  first  graduating  class.  His  friendliness 
brought  him  friends  and  his  friends  showed 
him  favor,  which  was  surely  his  desert.  He 
died  in  1795,  and  his  grave  was  plowed  over 
and  obliterated  by  Mr.  Peter  Brown,  a  Scotch- 
man and  a  lawyer,  who  acquired  his  home  by 
purchase,  a  few  years  after  Joel  Lane  was 
dead  and  gone.  Mr  Brown  in  his  turn  sold 
the  place  to  the  first  Mr.  William  Boylan, 
early  in  the  last  century. 


o    ^ 


EARLY   WORTHIES  85 

A  tablet  to  the  memory  of  Joel  Lane  was 
recently  placed  In  the  Municipal  Building  of 
Raleigh  by  the  Daughters  of  the  Revolution. 
One  of  Joel  Lane's  brothers  was  the  progeni- 
tor of  the  Lanes  of  Alabama  and  the  other  was 
the  ancestor  of  those  who  sought  the  far  west 
and  became  prominent  there.  Carolina  Lane, 
his  sister,  was  mother  of  David  L.  Swain,  and 
lived  her  whole  life  in  Buncombe  County  near 
Asheville. 

Another  pre-revolutionary  family  connec- 
tion was  that  of  the  Jones'  of  Wake  County. 
There  seem  to  have  been  two  distinct  families 
at  first,  no  known  kin,  and  living  in  different 
parts  of  the  county,  both  well  known  for  in- 
telligence and  property  acquired.  Besides 
this  fact,  two  men,  one  from  each  family,  bore 
the  unusual  name  of  Nathaniel,  and  of  these, 
one  named  his  eldest  son  after  himself;  hence 
it  requires  more  than  an  ordinary  genealogist 
to  reconstruct  their  respective  family  trees, 
and  this  all  the  more  because  they  complicated 
and  confounded  things  still  worse  by  inter- 
marrying once  or  twice  a  few  years  later,  after 
the  second  generation  had  grown  up. 

The  first  Jones  to  reach  Wake  County  was 
Francis  or  Frank  Jones,  who  settled  on  Crab- 


86  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

tree  Creek  near  Morrisvllle.  His  deed  from 
Lord  Carteret  bears  the  date  1749.  He 
bought  more  land  adjoining  in  1761.  His 
two  sons,  NathanielFirstofCrabtree,  and  Tig- 
nail,  or  Tingall,  were  often  mentioned  in 
County  and  State  records.  This  Frank  is 
said  to  have  been  a  brother  of  the  father  of 
Willie  Jones  and  General  Allen  Jones  of  Hali- 
fax. If  this  is  so  then  these  two  distinguished 
men  were  own  cousins  to  the  Jones  family  of 
Crabtree.  This  was  the  General  Allen  Jones 
who  gave  his  name  to  a  penniless  adventurer, 
John  Paul,  whom  he  had  befriended,  and  who 
asked  at  parting,  if  the  Jones  surname  might 
be  added  to  his  own,  promising  that  if  permit- 
ted so  to  add  it  he  would  also  add  fame  to  it 
some  day.  This  he  did  most  wonderfully,  as 
all  those  who  have  thrilled  at  the  story  of 
John  Paul  Jones  and  the  Bon  Homme  Richard 
can  testify. 

Perhaps  this  cousinship  gives  one  of  the 
reasons  for  the  residence  in  Raleigh  of  Willie 
Jones,  during  the  last  years  of  his  life.  This 
great  Jeff  ersonian  bought  the  plantation  where 
Saint  Augustine's  School  for  the  colored  race 
now  stands,  and  in  the  spot  where  the  garden 


EARLY    WORTHIES  87 

of  the  school  now  Is,  he  Hes  buried  In  an  un- 
marked grave.  Though  an  agnostic,  WiUie 
Jones  also  gave  the  land  for  a  Methodist 
Church,  where  Edenton  Street  now  stands, 
according  to  several  authorities.  He  died 
about  the  first  of  the  new  century. 

To  return  to  the  Jones  family  of  Crabtree. 
Nathaniel  the  second  of  Crabtree,  married  a 
daughter  of  John  KImbrough.  His  name 
appears  as  member  of  Assembly  from  Wake 
In  both  House  and  Senate  before  1801.  His 
son,  KImbrough  Jones,  was  a  member  of  the 
Constitutional  Assembly  of  1835,  and  he  has 
many  descendants.  John  KImbrough,  the 
father-in-law,  does  not  come  so  often  into  the 
records,  being  perhaps  a  man  busy  with  his 
plantation  alone,  but  he  owned  more  slaves 
In  1800  than  anyone  else,  except  James  HInton 
and  TIgnall  Jones. 

To  continue  the  Wake  County  Joneses :  Na- 
thaniel Jones  of  White  Plains  near  Cary,  came 
also  from  Eastern  North  Carolina.  His  an- 
cestors are  buried  In  old  Bath  Church,  and  he 
came  to  what  Is  now  Wake  County  in  1750. 
Nathaniel  of  White  Plains  was,  as  I  have  said, 
supposed  to  be  no  known  kin  to  Nathaniel  of 


EARLY    WORTHIES  89 

Crabtree.  His  father  was  of  Welsh  blood, 
and  bore  the  Welsh-given  name  of  Evan. 
Nathaniel  of  White  Plains  married  into  the 
Lane  family,  and  his  daughter  Sarah  married 
her  cousin,  John  Lane,  son  of  Joel.  They 
went  west,  and  their  son,  born  in  Tennessee 
was  named  Joel  Hinton  Lane.  Of  course 
there  were  many  others  of  this  family,  but  I 
give  this  instance  to  show  the  strong  mixture 
of  pioneering  blood  which  must  have  been 
the  very  elixir  of  life  in  that  "Winning  of  the 
West"  which  became  the  task  of  their  genera- 
tion. 

Finding  the  records  of  all  these  intermar- 
riages of  the  Jones  families,  and  adding  to 
them  the  more  recent  connections  of  these 
with  the  Cadwallader  Joneses  of  Hillsborough 
and  noting  the  constant  recurrence  of  familiar 
Wake  County  surnames  and  Welsh  patronym- 
ics among  the  lists  of  children,  one  realizes 
how  hopeless  and  how  useless  it  is  to  try  and 
untangle  the  skein  of  these  families. 

There  stands,  however,  a  desolate  house 
with  vacant  windows  and  grinning  rafters,  a 
high  four-square  old  house,  dating  from  the 
Revolutionary  time,  but  which  has  been  de- 


90  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

serted  many  years.  It  stands  near  the  town 
of  Cary  to  the  west,  and  Its  story  was  told  to 
me  by  an  old  lady  who  remembers  traditions, 
and  who  was  somewhat  kin  to  the  former 
owner.  Fanning  Jones,  but  who  was  not  proud 
of  the  relationship. 

Whether  his  name  means  a  relationship  of 
connection  with  the  notorious  Tory  leader 
who  stole  the  Governor,  or  whether  It  is  merely 
a  coincidence,  no  one  can  now  declare,  but  he 
is  said  for  some  vague  reason  to  have  forfeited 
the  regard  of  his  patriotic  relatives,  and  to 
have  been  driven  from  the  neighborhood  for 
that  reason.     The  Old  Tory,  they  called  him. 

Doctor  Calvin  Jones  on  whose  plantation 
Wake  Forest  College  was  located  was  a  later 
comer  into  the  county  from  the  North.  He 
sold  his  place  to  the  Trustees  of  the  Baptist 
School  for  two  thousand  dollars,  which  was 
considered  cheap  even  in  those  days,  for  six 
hundred  acres,  equipped  with  buildings. 
Doctor  Jones  sold  this  at  sacrifice  In  order  to 
move  to  Tennessee,  and  mentioning  him  here, 
too  early  as  to  time,  but  In  order  to  distinguish 
him,  we  will  add  that  ht  was  a  distinguished 
physician  and  that  he  had  a  fine  war  record 


EARLY    WORTHIES  91 

for  the  war  of  1812,  having  raised  a  Wake 
County  troop  of  horse  for  the  army. 

Besides  these  people  whom  I  have  called 
out  of  the  past,  and  not  speaking  of  others 
perhaps  as  prominent  and  as  useful,  we  must 
recall  the  forbears  of  many  of  our  citizens  of 
today,  living  in  simple  homes,  leaving  no  re- 
cord of  wealth,  save  the  ownership  of  the  acres 
which  they  had  won  from  the  wilderness  and 
tilled  for  themselves  with  their  own  hands. 
A  random  reading  over  of  the  tax  payers 
whose  names  were  enrolled  in  Wake  County 
in  the  year  1800,  such  a  list  as  appears  in  the 
State  records,  yields  many  of  the  most  re- 
spected and  honored  names  of  today — many 
names  seen  on  church  rolls,  painted  on  sign- 
boards, and  on  office  windows,  names  which 
have  been  marked  by  flags  on  Memorial  days 
in  the  cemetery  and  which  only  yesterday 
have  been  engrossed  and  hung  in  the  vesti- 
bules of  churches,  names  marked  on  service 
flags  with  blue  stars,  and  some  after  awhile 
with  golden  ones. 

The  father  and  son,  and  the  mother  and 
daughter  also,  these  are  those  who  have  re- 
deemed the  wilderness,  peopled  the  solitude, 


92  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

fought  in  Revolutionary  ranks  in  blue  and 
buff,  and  many  years  later  have  worn  Confed- 
erate grey.  They  have  done  the  hardest 
work  of  the  new  land,  and  the  harder  of  the 
land  grown  populous,  they  whose  descendants 
have  fought  and  fallen  on  the  fields  of  France 
so  lately,  these  plain  people  of  whom  the  world 
is  made,  and  for  whom  it  was  made,  and  who 
shall  carry  the  work  on  by  their  descendants 
into  many  a  tomorrow. 


CHAPTER  IV 

Raleigh  the  Capital  Village 

OLONEL  CREECY  In  his  "Grand- 
fathers Tales''  describes  the  look 
of  the  City  of  Raleigh  in  the 
year  1800  and  for  some  years 
thereafter.  He  says,  "It  was  a 
town  of  magnificent  distances,  of  unsightly 
bramble  bush,  and  briers,  of  hills  and  morass- 
es, of  grand  old  oaks  and  few  Inhabitants,  and 
an  onwelcome  look  to  newcomers." 

At  that  time  the  first  State  House  stood 
solitary  on  the  Capitol  Square  and  near  It  was 
the  famous  sassafras  tree,  which  had  long 
marked  a  wonderful  deer  stand  whence  forty 
deer  had  been  shot  by  one  hunter's  rifle,  within 
the  memory  of  those  then  alive. 

Governor  Ashe  was  the  first  governor  to 
make  Raleigh  his  permanent  residence,  and 
he  came  to  town  In  1795,  while  the  other  State 
officers  also  found  It  necessary  to  "go  out  there 
in  the  woods  to  live,  and  help  with  the  govern- 
ment." The  first  Governor's  mansion  was  a 
plain  frame  building  on  Fayettevllle  Street 
about  where  the  Raleigh  Banking  and  Trust 

]93] 


94  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Company's  building  now  stands.  By  1800 
there  were  two  hotels.  The  first  one,  Casso's, 
still  stands  on  the  corner  of  Morgan  and 
Fayetteville  Streets  opposite  the  State  Lib- 
rary Building,  is  especially  in  excellent  repair, 
and  were  the  fire  escapes  and  such  modern  ad- 
ditions taken  away,  would  remain  much  as  it 
used  to  be  when  the  stages  rolled  to  the 
door.  The  second  was  called  the  Eagle,  which 
was  demolished  in  April  1922,  to  erect  a  new 
State  Department  Building 

One  handsome  residence  had  been  built  in 
Raleigh  which  is  standing  today,  and  has 
been  kept  in  repair,  remarkable  beside  for 
the  fact  that  it  is  still  inhabited  by  the  re- 
presentatives of  the  family  that  built  it. 
There  is  no  other  residence  so  old  in  town  or 
county  today,  beside  ''the  old  Burke  Hay- 
wood Mansion"  on  New  Berne  Avenue,  built 
in  the  year  1794,  of  which  we  may  confidently 
say,  as  it  is  today  so  it  was  almost  identi- 
cally, more  than  a  hundred  years  ago. 

There  were  homes  and  stores  along  Fayette- 
ville Street — small  frame  buildings  long  since 
burned  or  demolished;  the  Joel  Lane  house 
stood  near  where  it  now  stands,  but  facing 


RALEIGH    THE    CAPITAL    VILLAGE  95 

South  Boylan  Avenue;  the  Mordecai  place 
was  partly  built;  the  old  Andrew  Johnson 
birthplace,  judging  by  the  style  of  architecture 
was  then  In  existence,  but  tradition  says  that 
It  stood  near  the  plot  where  Tucker's  Store 
was  built  Immediately  after  the  war  of  '61. 
From  thence  It  was  moved  at  that  time  to 
Cabarrus  Street,  where  It  remained  until  1900, 
when  the  local  Committee  of  the  Colonial 
Dames  of  America  had  it  taken  down  board 
by  board,  and  reconstructed,  exactly,  in  Pul- 
len  Park,  where  it  is  now  preserved  as  a  relic. 
There  was  no  church  edifice  in  Raleigh  in 
1800,  although  services  were  frequently  held 
by  the  several  denominations  in  the  State 
House. 

There  were  no  common  schools  in  all  North 
Carolina,  and  but  few  pay  schools.  In  the 
year  1801,  Raleigh  asks  for  state  aid  in  estab- 
lishing an  academy,  and  also  petitions  for  the 
use  of  Burke  Square  (where  the  Governor's 
mansion  now  stands)  for  Its  site. 

In  1802  the  plans  for  the  building  were  made, 
fifty  feet  long  and  twenty-four  feet  wide, 
with  fireplaces  at  each  end  both  above  and 
below  stairs.     My  authority  says  brick,  but 


96  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

the  expression  is  so  vague,  perhaps  it  merely 
means  that  the  great  chimneys  were  brick, 
and  not  the  whole  building.  In  1807  a  build- 
ing for  a  "Female  Department"  was  added. 
This  was  one-story  and  smaller.  The  school 
was  supported  partly  by  tuition  fees  and  part- 
ly by  private  subscriptions  to  bonds  or  shares. 
All  the  State  officers'  names  of  that  day  and 
those  of  nearly  all  the  townsfolk  besides  were 
to  be  found  on  its  lists. 

In  1813  another  building  was  built,  the  two 
larger  buildings  were  insured  for  two  thousand 
dollars  each,  while  the  Female  Department 
carried  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  Tui- 
tion was  nine  dollars  a  year  and  the  rolls  of 
honor  and  other  school  notices  published  in 
the  newspapers  of  the  time  show  that  many  of 
the  pupils  were  from  other  places  and  boarded 
in  town.  By  the  year  1817  one  hundred 
eighty  pupils  were  in  attendance.  The  first 
teacher  engaged  was  named  German  Guthrie, 
the  second  Maurin  Delaigny,  a  French  refugee, 
a  Huguenot  minister,  who  afterwards  went  to 
Charleston  and  became  pastor  of  the  old 
Huguenot  Church  there. 

In  1810  came  Doctor  William  Mc.Pheeters 
who  was  principal  of  the  Academy  for  many 


RALEIGH    THE    CAPITAL    VILLAGE  97 

years,  and  also  ''Town  Pastor,"  preaching  on 
Sundays  in  the  State  House  and  holding  Sun- 
day School  there.  His  salary  was  eight  hun- 
dred dollars  a  year.  His  school  throve,  and 
soon  he  required  assistants  In  his  work.  The 
course  included  Latin,  Greek,  Mathematics, 
English,  Geography,  and  Bible,  and  his 
scholars  ranged  from  beginners  In  reading  to 
those  who  would  go  next  year  to  the  Univer- 
sity. No  Latin  or  Greek  was  taught  to  the 
girls,  but  a  course  In  ^'alphabetical  samplers" 
and  wool  work  took  the  place  of  the  classics 
for  them. 

There  were  other  schools  In  the  county,  and 
some  were  very  efficient,  especially  the  one 
at  Wake  Forest  which  afterwards  was  enlarged 
into  Wake  Forest  College.  Besides  this  one 
the  schools  were  more  or  less  Intermittent,  be- 
ing private  enterprises. 

One  of  the  Raleigh  schools  deserves  mention 
for  the  oddity  of  Its  human  Interest. 

John  Chavis  was  a  negro  slave,  who  was 
sent  by  his  master  to  Princeton  College,  and 
educated  as  a  Presbyterian  minister.  This 
was  done  as  an  experiment  on  the  part  of  his 
owner,    to   see   what  could   be   done   with    a 


98  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

negro's  mind,  as  I  have  been  told  by  the 
older  people.  John  had  a  good  understand- 
ing and  a  docile  disposition.  When,  after  his 
years  of  training,  he  was  returned  home  an 
educated  man  of  some  refinement,  it  became  a 
problem  to  know  what  should  be  done  with 
him.  He  was  an  ordained  Presbyterian  min- 
ister; he  could  not  be  sent  back  to  the  negro 
quarters;  nor  could  he  be  recognized  as  a 
social  equal.  He  was  set  free,  and  he  was  per- 
mitted to  use  his  learning  in  instruction  of 
youth.  He  taught  in  Raleigh  in  1808,  in- 
structing poor  white  children  in  the  day,  and 
colored  youth  at  night.  He  afterwards  kept 
school  in  other  parts  of  the  State,  and  prepared 
many  prominent  young  men  for  college  with 
great  success.  I  have  heard  stories  told  of 
how  on  occasion,  he  might  be  at  some  white 
planter's  house  at  meal  time,  and  how  the 
plantation  darkies  would  come  to  peer  into 
the  windows  of  the  dining  room  at  the  Great 
House,  to  see  "dat  nigger  John  Chavis"  sit- 
ting over  at  his  side  table  by  himself,  but 
nevertheless,  actually  eating  his  dinner  in  the 
same  room  with  Old  Massa  and  Old  Miss. 
That  was  the  way  the  problem   was  finally 


RALEIGH    THE    CAPITAL    VILLAGE  99 

solved  as  to  the  exact  social  position  of  John 
Chavis. 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  educational 
uplift  in  Raleigh,  let  me  chronicle  the  doings 
of  the  leading  matrons  of  the  town  in  the 
year  1802.  They  then  presented  a  pair  of 
globes  to  the  scientific  equipment  of  the  Infant 
University  at  Chapel  Hill.  The  names  of 
of  the  donors  were  as  follows:  S.  W.  Potter, 
Eliza  Haywood,  Sarah  Polk,  Anna  White, 
Martha  McKethan,  Margaret  Casso,  Eliza 
Williams,  Nancy  Bond,  Hannah  Paddison, 
Susannah  Parish,  Ann  O'Brien,  E.  H.  P. 
Smith,  Nancy  Haywood,  Priscilla  Shaw, 
Rebecca  Williams,  Winifred  Mears.  This  is 
probably  a  list  of  all  the  ladies  who  made  up 
Raleigh  society  at  that  date,  and  shows  these 
good  women  ready  and  efficient  in  helping 
worthy  causes  as  their  descendants  and  suc- 
cessors have  ever  since  striven  to  do. 

A  brick  mansion  was  built  about  1813,  just 
opposite  the  foot  of  Fayetteville  Street,  and 
outside  the  then  city  limits.  It  stood  where 
the  Centennial  School  stands  now.  It  was  a 
large  simple  building,  with  no  architectural 
pretensions,  and  was  paid  for  out  of  the  pro- 
ceeds of  lots  In  the  City  of  Raleigh  sold  for  the 


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RALEIGH    THE    CAPITAL    VILLAGE  101 

purpose,  being  those  which  remained  in  the 
possession  of  the  State  up  to  that  time. 
These  lots  did  not  bring  as  great  a  sum  as  was 
hoped,  by  reason  of  the  hard  times  prevaihng 
after  the  War  of  1812.  This  mansion,  al- 
ways known  as  the  Governor's  Palace,  is  the 
one  occupied  by  all  Governors  in  succession 
from  1813  up  to  the  War  of  '61,  and  Gover- 
nor Swain  adds  in  dignified  phrase,  ''The 
Executive  office  was  then,  as  now,  contiguous 
to  the  Palatial  Residence." 

The  little  town  of  those  early  days  was  in 
feeling  and  deportment  always  the  capital. 
We  read  of  plays  staged,  of  processions  and 
festivities,  of  speakings  patriotic,  and  speak- 
ings commemorative,  and  of  regular  religious 
services  all  held  in  the  State  House,  which  was 
then  even  more  than  since,  the  center,  and  one 
might  say,  almost  the  circumference  as  well 
of  all  Raleigh's  social  life. 

Banquets  in  celebration  of  the  national  an- 
niversaries, not  on  a  strictly  temperance  plan, 
were  held  at  the  hotels  and  occasionally  out 
of  doors  at  the  mineral  spring  near  the  Palace. 
These  inns  were  good  ones,  because  of  the 
many  gentlemen  who  had  to  be  entertained 


102  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

at  certain  seasons  of  the  year,  whose  number 
would  have  strained  the  small  private  accom- 
modations of  the  place. 

On  great  occasions  tables  were  even  set  in 
the  rotunda  of  the  State  House  and  toasts 
were  drunk  on  patriotic  excuse  to  ''every 
State  in  the  Union,"  and  the  fact  that  there 
were  not  nearly  so  many  states  then  as  there 
are  now  is  the  reason  the  devoted  banqueters 
lived  through  the  test. 

The  census  of  Raleigh  on  March  23,  1807,  as 
published  in  the  Raleigh  Minerva,  gives  white 
males  255,  white  females  178,  freedmen  33, 
slaves  270,  total  786,  families  85.  Governor 
Swain  also  gives  these  figures.  The  apparent 
overplus  of  bachelors  in  Raleigh  at  that  time 
is  noticeable,  there  being  seventy-five  or  more 
unattached  men.  This  must  mean  that  the 
State  officials  were  written  down  as  residents 
whether  they  had  brought  their  families  to 
live  in  the  town  or  not. 

Raleigh  had  a  commission  form  of  govern- 
ment in  those  early  days,  similiar  to  that  of 
the  City  of  Washington  now,  being  governed 
by  the  direct  authority  of  the  Assembly.  It 
also  had  a  town  watch  which  patroled  the  un- 


RALEIGH    THE    CAPITAL    VILLAGE  103 

lighted  Streets  at  night,  and  kept  the  slaves 
from  wandering  abroad.  There  were  twenty- 
classes  who  took  turns.  This  same  plan  was 
universally  followed  In  the  larger  towns 
throughout  the  South. 

The  names  of  the  Captains  of  the  Watch 
for  the  year  1811  were  Henry  Potter,  Isaac 
Lane,  William  Scott,  William  Boylan,  Joseph 
Gales,  Thomas  Emond,  Southey  Bond,  John 
Wyatt,  Joseph  Peace,  Samuel  Goodwin,  Bev- 
erly Daniel,  William  Peck,  Willis  Rogers, 
Sherwood  Haywood,  William  Jones,  John 
Raboteau,  James  Coman,  Benjamin  King, 
Robert  Cannon,  and  Jacob  Johnson.  This 
last  name  was  that  of  the  father  of  the  Presi- 
dent Andrew  Johnson. 

We  may  gather  a  good  many  good  home- 
sounding  names  from  this  collection,  although 
they  made  their  rounds  more  than  a  century 
ago,  and  all  sleep  dreamless  sleep  tonight  while 
others  are  watching. 

The  war  of  1812  having  been  fought  to  a 
glorious  finish,  and  the  Algerian  pirates  having 
been  smoked  out  by  Admiral  Decatur,  the 
America  name  became  more  respected  and 
the    flag    more    distinguished    abroad,    while 


104  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

England  was  no  longer  a  present  fear  to  our 
nation  as  it  had  been  since  the  Revolution. 
Our  nation  began  to  feel  its  full  destiny  as 
favored  of  heaven.  We  might  say  of  ourselves 
in  our  growing  vigor  and  importance  as  a 
nation, 

^'No-pent  up  Utica  contracts  our  pozvers.^^ 

This  happy  time  when  there  was  little  politi- 
cal or  sectional  bitterness  or  other  jealousy 
was  called  the  ''era  of  good  feeling."  The. 
Revolution  was  receding  into  the  historic  past, 
and  its  heroes  loomed  grander,  and  less  dis- 
tinct, as  their  doings  passed  out  of  ordinary 
day-light  into  the  shadowed  aisles  of  history. 
The  great  consequences  of  these  deeds  were 
more  and  more  realized,  as  time  unfolded  its 
changes. 

There  was  in  this  village  capital  of  North 
Carolina  ninety  years  ago  one  treasure  which 
we  would  give  a  great  deal  to  possess,  and  to 
be  able  to  point  to,  in  our  Capitol  of  today.  I 
refer  to  the  famous  statue  of  General  George 
Washington,  first  President  of  the  United 
States,  which  was  made  by  Canova. 

In  November,  1815,  the  Assembly  of  North 
Carolina  passed  a  bill  authorizing  the  purchase 


RALEIGH    THE    CAPITAL    VILLAGE  105 

of  a  Statue  of  the  great  and  good  George 
Washington,  to  be  placed  in  the  State  House, 
and  setting  no  limit  to  the  cost  of  such  a  work 
of  art. 

The  people  of  North  Carolina  had  a  right 
to  be  proud  of  their  appreciative  admiration 
for  Washington,  and  the  delight  they  took  to 
honor  his  memory  honored  themselves  also. 

It  was  a  charming  bit  of  extravagance,  and 
not  like  the  strange  freaks  of  spending  that 
attack  stingy  folk  once  in  a  lifetime,  but  the 
result  of  pure  idealism, — the  fact  of  a  heroic 
figure  impressing  the  imagination  of  a  whole 
people,  so  that  they  were  intent  upon  pouring 
out  the  precious  ointment  of  their  hearts  to 
his  memory. 

The  motion  for  obtaining  this  statue  was 
first  made  in  the  House  by  Thomas  Spencer 
of  Hyde  County.  His  descendants,  if  there 
are  any,  should  be  proud  of  their  ancestor  for 
this  deed. 

Governor  Miller,  the  then  executive,  con- 
sulted Senator  Turner  and  Senator  Macon  in 
Washington,  and  they  in  turn  consulted 
Thomas  Jefferson  in  his  retirement  at  Monti- 
cello.     It  was  decided  that  only  the  best  was 


106  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

worthy  of  the  greatest  American  and  of  the 
State  of  North  CaroHna,  and  so  the  Ambassa- 
dor to  Italy  from  the  Federal  Government  was 
commissioned  to  bespeak  a  portrait  statue  of 
Washington  from  Canova.  Canova  was  the 
greatest  sculptor  then  alive,  unless  Thorvald- 
sen  of  Sweden  be  named  as  his  equal. 

When  asked  to  undertake  the  commission 
from  the  State  of  North  Carolina,  he  put 
aside  many  orders  to  accept  it,  on  account,  he 
said,  of  his  extreme  admiration  for  the  genius 
of  the  great  Washington,  and  for  his  noble 
deeds.  The  statue  was  executed  in  Carrara 
marble,  white  as  snow.  The  figure  was  larger 
than  life.  When  finished,  it  was  brought  to 
Boston  on  a  United  States  war  vessel  com- 
manded by  Captain  Bainbridge,  a  hero  of  the 
Pirates'  War.  From  Boston  it  was  trans- 
shipped to  Wilmington  on  a  coastwise  vessel, 
and  it  arrived  there  in  1821.  From  Wilming- 
ton to  Fayetteville,  it  was  floated  up  the  Cape 
Fear  River. 

William  Nichols,  father  of  Captain  John 
Nichols,  who  lived  at  that  time  in  Raleigh  and 
was  in  charge  of  the  improvement  of  the  Capi- 
tol and  of  other  building  for  the  State  at  the 


RALEIGH    THE    CAPITAL    VILLAGE  107 

University,  was  put  in  charge  also  of  this 
task.  It  was  for  him  to  contrive  means  of 
transporting  those  heavy  marbles  over  the 
long  rough  miles  between  Fayetteville  and 
Raleigh.  That  he  did  so  successfully  is  an- 
other tribute  to  his  practical  ability.  On  the 
ninth  of  November,  1821,  word  came  that  the 
wagons  bearing  the  precious  blocks  of  marble 
were  near,  the  entire  population  of  Raleigh, 
Governor,  State  officials,  and  many  citizens 
of  other  parts  of  the  State  as  well,  went  out 
in  procession  along  the  Fayetteville  road  to 
meet  the  train  of  wagons,  and  bring  them 
into  the  city  with  a  band  and  speeches  and 
rejoicings. 

Colonel  William  Polk  pronounced  the  ora- 
tion. He  was  living  in  Raleigh  as  president 
of  the  First  State  Bank.  He  was  a  Revolu- 
tionary veteran,  and  had  been  a  friend  of 
Washington,  and  personally  associated  with 
Lafayette.  He  was  father  of  Leonidas  K. 
Polk,  afterwards  the  '^fighting  bishop,"  and 
was  cousin  to  President  Polk. 

His  speech  on  this  occasion  was  solemn  and 
stately,  and  he  rhetorically  declared  that  it 
was  but  meet  and  fitting  that  the  degenerate 


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RALEIGH    THE    CAPITAL    VILLAGE  109 

Italian  nation  should  add  the  refinement  of 
art  to  the  rough  but  vigorous  patriotism  of  the 
American  Republic,  now  far  more  than  Italy 
the  Inheritor  of  the  spirit  of  ancient  Rome. 
This  is  but  the  impression  of  a  long  past 
perusal  and  not  a  direct  quotation. 

The  statue,  when  unpacked  and  set  in  posi- 
tion In  the  rotunda  of  the  old  State  House  by 
Mr.  Nichols  seemed,  to  the  critical  eyes  of 
many  who  had  seen  Washington  In  the  flesh, 
a  good  likeness  as  regarded  the  countenance. 
Our  good  people,  not  aware  of  artistic  license, 
were,  however,  quite  struck  dumb  by  the  fact 
that  the  Father  of  His  Country  was  dressed  in 
a  Roman  Consul's  costume,  with  toga,  bare 
legs,  and  sandaled  feet.  This  made  them 
wonder  and  stare. 

Washington  was  represented  seated,  with 
a  tablet  on  one  knee,  on  which  he  was  writing 
his  farewell  address  with  a  stylus.  The  atti- 
tude was  balanced  and  graceful,  the  face  calm 
and  grave.  The  figure  sat  upon  a  Roman 
curule  chair,  and  this  rested  upon  a  pedestal, 
which  was  sculptured  on  all  four  sides  with 
bas-reliefs,  showing  notable  scenes  In  the 
public  service  of  Washington. 


110  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

The  sculpture  exhibited  Canova  at  his  best, 
in  which  the  stone  was  made  to  take  a  finish 
that  seemed  almost  as  smooth  to  the  touch  as 
it  appeared  soft  to  the  eye,  so  perfect  was 
the  working,  so  delicate  the  surface.  The 
great  Lafayette,  when  he  came  to  Raleigh  in 
1825,  vouched  for  the  correctness  of  the  like- 
ness as  he  surveyed  it.  The  statue  was  the 
pride  of  the  people  of  North  Carolina.  Judge 
Gaston  said  of  them,  "Limited  in  their  means, 
plain  in  their  habits,  economical  in  their  ex- 
penditures, on  this  subject  they  indulged  in 
generous  munificence."  It  was  suggested  by 
some  practical  soul,  that  a  statue  so  valuable 
being  now  placed  in  a  building  not  fireproof, 
should  be  mounted  on  low  wheels  to  permit  of 
its  being  moved  in  case  of  fire,  but  this  sugges- 
tion was  laughed  to  scorn.  It  is  hard  to  guess 
now,  in  this  age  of  wheels,  why  it  was  thought  to 
be  so  undignified,  so  very  funny  to  mount  the 
statue  in  this  way,  for  the  sake  of  its  safety. 
Had  this  been  done,  we  might  well  possess  it 
today,  for  it  might  have  been  easily  saved 
from  destruction. 

Only  for  about  ten  years  did  the  State  own 
this  art  treasure,  for  all  of  that  period  easily 


RALEIGH    THE    CAPITAL    VILLAGE  111 

the  finest  example  of  high  art  In  all  America. 
The  mother  of  the  writer  saw  this  statue  in 
in  1830,  and  though  but  a  child  at  the  time, 
she  ever  remembered  it  with  a  vivid  impression 
and  has  described  it  minutely  to  her  children. 
Mrs.  A.  B.  Andrews  had  a  most  exact  picture 
of  it,  from  an  Italian  source,  entirely  authentic. 
Also  there  is  an  engraving  with  Lafayette  and 
Miss  Haywood  standing  looking  at  it.  In 
the  year  1910  owing  to  the  indefatigable  effort 
of  the  Hall  of  History,  a  cast  had  been  made 
from  the  model,  and  sent  as  a  gift  from  the 
King  of  Italy.  The  lost  treasure  in  its  beauty 
is  a  vivid  personal  regret.  The  poor  muti- 
lated fragments  of  the  trunk  and  pedestal 
which  occupy  one  corner  of  the  Hall  of  History 
speak  eloquently  of  its  fate  but  tell  little  of 
its  glory. 

Canova  the  great  Italian  sculptor,  was  at 
the  height  of  his  fame  and  reputation  when  he 
made  the  statue.  He  was  called  the  true  in- 
heritor of  the  classical  tradition.  He  always 
used  the  mannerisms  of  the  antique  statues 
he  studied,  as  well  as  followed  the  real  beauty 
of  their  conception.  He  is  now  somewhat 
superseded   in   artistic   esteem   being  consid- 


112  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

ered  too  artificial,  too  smooth,  although  many 
lovely  works  of  his  are  still  cherished. 

The  old  Raleigh  Community  revelled  in 
processions  as  well  as  banquets.  Fourth  of 
July  was  always  a  fair  chance  to  enjoy  a 
parade.  Hear  the  account  of  a  celebration 
of  the  ever-glorious  Fourth  which  took  place 
in  the  year  1809.  ''At  twelve  o'clock,  a  pro- 
cession of  citizens  and  strangers,  with  Captain 
Calvin  Jones'  troop  of  cavalry,  formed  at  the 
State  House  during  the  ringing  of  the  State 
House,  Court  House,  and  Town  bells,  and  the 
firing  of  the  cannon.  Being  seated  in  the 
Commons  Chamber,  an  ode  in  honor  of  this 
day,  composed  for  the  occasion,  was  sung  by 
a  choir  of  seventy  voices.  Reverend  Mr. 
Turner  (the  principal  of  the  Academy)  de- 
livered an  oration.  At  three  o'clock  the  com- 
pany sat  down  to  an  excellent  dinner  prepared 
by  Mr.  Casso  (keeper  of  the  Hotel),  which 
was  served  in  the  State  House.  Colonel  Polk 
and  Mr.  Potter  presided  and  toasts  were 
drunk  to  the  Governor,  Mr.  Nash,  to  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  North  Carolina,  to  Literature, 
Science  and  Art,  to  the  University  of  North 
North  Carolina,  to  the  Constitution  of  North 
Carolina,  and  to  'The  social  circles  of  life.'  " 


RALEIGH    THE    CAPITAL    VILLAGE  113 

It  was  the  custom  of  Doctor  William  Mc- 
Pheeters  a  few  years  later  to  hold  a  sunrise 
service  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  and  to  preach  a 
patriotic  sermon,  which  was  always  well  attend- 
ed, and  very  impressive.  Reverend  Drury 
Lacy  kept  up  this  custom  of  the  town  after- 
ward. Following  this  came  an  oration  by 
some  good  speaker,  the  reading  of  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence,  a  procession  of  all 
the  Sunday  School  children  down  Fayette- 
ville  Street  to  the  'Talatial  Residence"  and 
then  half  way  back  again  to  the  sound  of  the 
bells  of  the  town.  Dispersing  there,  everybody 
attended  a  picnic  and  barbecue  in  Parrish's 
Grove,  at  the  corner  of  Davie  and  Blount 
Streets,  and  opportunity  was  given  for  all  the 
courting  and  matchmaking  that  the  daylight 
would  hold.  At  nightfall,  the  streets  being 
unlighted,  and  the  ways  long,  the  population 
called  it  a  day  and  went  home. 

In  calling  up  pictures  of  the  town  that  then 
was,  I  have  failed  to  mention  the  beginnings 
of  the  various  religious  denominations,  al- 
though by  the  time  the  State  House  was 
burned  there  were  three  churches  in  Raleigh. 
The  Presbyterians  had  a  congregation  organ- 


114  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

ized  in  1806,  but  as  Dr.  McPheeters  was 
the  only  regular  pastor  in  town  for  a  long  time, 
services  were  held  in  the  State  House,  and  they 
did  not  build  until  1817.  The  early  Method- 
ists led  the  way,  and  built  a  little  church  where 
Edenton  Street  Church  now  stands,  and  by 
the  next  year  the  Baptists  also  had  a  small 
church  building  finished. 

In  1820  the  Episcopal  Church  was  organ- 
ised, and  by  1826  they  had  begun  a  church  on 
the  present  site  of  Christ  Church.  Later  we 
find  Duncan  Cameron  chairman  of  the  build- 
ing committee  which  made  Christ  Church  of 
today,  one  of  our  really  lovely  buildings. 

There  had  also  been  in  Raleigh  for  some 
time  a  sort  of  crazy  parson,  a  Mr.  Clenden- 
ning,  who  had  a  pet  heresy  and  preached  it 
on  Sundays.  On  weekdays  he  sold  goods  over 
his  counter,  and  had  plenty  of  ability  and  com- 
mon sense  to  make  money  in  his  mercantile 
business.  He  seems  to  have  been  a  sort  of 
town  joke. 

Having  tried  in  the  foregoing  chapters  to 
bring  back  the  idea  of  the  old  times  as  they 
really  were,  we  must  next  try  to  recall  some  of 
the  great  men,  and  draw  their  characters, 
some  of  those  who  moved  about  the  streets 


RALEIGH    THE    CAPITAL    VILLAGE  115 

of  our  old  capital,  and  made  Impression  on 
our  Institutions.  Many  were  not  natives  of 
Raleigh,  and  yet  were  nevertheless  a  part  of 
Its  life,  and  a  boast,  to  be  pointed  out  to 
strangers  sojourning  In  our  gates  as  they  mov- 
ed on  our  common  ways.  We  must  revive 
the  shock  of  the  burning  of  the  State  House. 
We  must  learn  something  of  the  struggle  and 
final  successful  anchoring  of  the  State  capital 
here  In  Raleigh,  for  when  the  State  House  was 
burned,  of  course  the  other  claimants  revived 
their  claims. 

Beside  this  we  must  bring  out  those  old 
tales  which  make  former  days  alive,  and  re- 
store to  us  the  atmosphere  so  long  dispersed, 
together  with  the  likeness  of  those  who  were 
a  part  of  the  passing  panorama. 

We  must  go  down  the  roaring  forties,  and 
make  ourselves  by  all  means  catch  the  feel- 
ing that  pervaded  the  world  before  the  War 
of  '61,  and  thereby  moulded  history;  not  for- 
getting that  very  often  feeling  Is  far  stronger 
than  policy. 

The  history  of  a  people  Is  the  history  of  the 
the  minds  in  It,  as  worked  upon  by  the  soul- 
currents  of  the  age,  which  pass  no  one  knows 
how,  like  the  wind  that  bloweth  where  It 
llsteth. 


CHAPTER  V 

Early  Life  and  Thought 

E  must  now  forget  the  path  we 
have  traveled  to  our  present  day- 
conception  of  things,  throw  away- 
all  those  beliefs  and  ideas 
which  have  crystallized  in  our 
lifetimes,  and  think  away  modern  conveniences 
and  conditions  and  a  collection  of  uncertain- 
ties and  questions  that  exist  no  more.  If  there 
is  "no  new  thing  under  the  sun,"  yet  old  ideas 
are  seen  in  very  novel  combinations  as  time 
goes  on. 

Look  at  the  politics  of  those  elder  folk,  and 
by  politics  I  mean  the  prevailing  conceptions 
of  right  and  expediency  in  governmental  poli- 
cies, rather  than  party  or  partizanship;  what 
real  correspondences  do  they  show  to  the 
political  questions  of  today  .^^ 

Look  at  their  economics.  With  the  whole 
continent  beyond  him  to  choose  a  residence 
from,  what  need  was  there  for  the  old  North 
Carolina  farmer  to  intensify,  to  economize,  or 
to  farm  constructively.^ 

[ii6] 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    THOUGHT  117 

He  need  not  suffer  In  an  environment  that 
did  not  suit  him,  he  could  go  west,  he  could 
take  up  new  land  to  replace  the  fields  he  had 
cleared  and  exhausted.  Nothing  hindered  the 
restlessness  of  the  frontiersman. 

Fiscal  and  money  problems  were  not  well 
understood  even  in  Europe  of  this  time.  The 
question  of  the  best  way  to  guard  the  money 
capital  needed  for  all  this  expansion,  had  been 
settled  neither  in  theory  nor  experience  by  any 
financier.  While  the  time  of  the  formation 
of  the  constitutions  of  the  United  States  and 
of  the  several  States  had  revealed  a  farsighted 
statesmanship  which  it  would  he  hard  to 
match  today,  yet  all  was  a  great  experiment. 
No  one  knew  how  well  it  was  going  to  work, 
and  only  time  could  reveal  its  flaws.  We  dis- 
agree honestly  today  on  many  matters,  but 
we  have  settled  most  of  the  questions  which 
exercised  our  grandfathers. 

A  caustic  wit  has  called  Democracy  ''the 
rule  of  the  planless  man,"  but  it  was  not  plans 
which  were  lacking  in  that  seething  time  when 
remnants  of  old  English  monarchical  conser- 
vatism and  the  newest  and  wildest  of  French 
Revolutionary  theories  were  striving  to  com- 
bine into  something  different  from  either. 


118  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

"The  broadening  of  human  thought  Is  ever 
a  slow  and  a  complex  process."  Our  old  time 
Federalist  did  not  correspond  to  any  of  the 
political  partizanshlps  of  today  and  his  party 
passed  away  with  the  echoes  of  the  War  of 
1812.  In  his  time  he  represented  the  conser- 
vative element,  but  no  special  privilege  save 
that  of  education,  and  the  able  leadership  It 
gave. 

The  leaders  of  the  Jeifersonian  popular 
party  distrusted  the  educated  few,  because  as 
they  said,  they  were  '*too  far  from  the  people 
to  understand  their  ways."  The  old  Feder- 
alists had  for  their  successors  the  Whigs,  while 
the  JefFersonlan,  afterwards  called  the  Re- 
publican, and  lastly  the  Democratic  party, 
represented  the  ideals  of  liberty  as  advocated 
in  the  French  Revolution. 

England  of  just  after  the  Revolution  was  a 
very  conservative,  hard  England,  but  In 
America  no  such  degeneration  of  the  demo- 
cratic gospel  took  place;  the  rise  of  the  plain 
people,  the  opportunity  of  the  common  man 
to  become  uncommon,  was  the  opportunity  of 
all  in  America. 

Andrew  Jackson,  "Old  Hickory"  as  he  was 
called,  born  In  North  Carolina,  called  to  office 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    THOUGHT  119 

from  Tennessee,  well  expressed  his  party  as 
President  and  as  popular  hero. 

In  politics  North  Carolina  was  naturally 
democratic,  but  the  majority  of  her  leading 
intellects  happened  to  be  Whigs,  and  many  of 
her  best  prophets  were  without  honor  in  their 
own  country. 

The  money  organization  of  the  United 
States  was  the  field  of  many  experiments. 
Jackson  was  of  the  opinion  that  money  matters 
were  best  left  to  each  sovereign  state,  and  so 
he  aboHshed  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
distributing  its  surplus  pro  rata  among  the 
states.  This  institution  was  doubtless  a  very 
imperfect  one,  but  had  afforded  a  central 
stable  valuation  of  credit.  Now  there  were 
as  many  values  and  measures  as  there  were 
states,  all  the  way  from  the  "wild  cat"  banks 
of  the  west,  to  the  conservative  institutions 
of  New  England.  Following  the  changeless 
law  of  finance,  all  the  better  money  was  hoard- 
ed and  the  worse  put  in  circulation.  Each 
state  had  a  State  Bank  which  bore  the  same 
relation  to  its  finances  as  did  the  United 
States  bank  to  the  United  States  funds,  and 
there  came  to  be  a  strange  mixture  of  money. 


120  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

with  SO  many  banks  issuing  notes  which  were 
more  or  less  good  at  a  shorter  or  longer 
distance  from  the  banks  of  their  origin. 

The  habit  of  mind  about  money  is  a  great 
part  of  the  mental  furniture  of  a  man,  because 
it  disposes  him  to  honest  dealing  and  honest 
success,  or  disposes  him  to  the  taking  of  too 
heavy  risks. 

The  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century 
were  far  too  much  given  to  the  sporting  con- 
ception of  things,  and  loose  ideas  about  money 
have  given  more  trouble  to  our  people  than 
has  any  fallacy  which  has  survived  Into  the 
present. 

When,  after  the  unlucky  Democratic  admin- 
istration of  Van  Buren,  the  scale  tipped  to- 
ward the  Whigs,  every  one  but  the  inside 
bosses  thought  of  Henry  Clay  as  the  Whig 
choice  for  President. 

It  Is  not  clear  just  how  his  nomination  was 
defeated,  but  defeated  It  was,  and  Harrison 
won  It,  Tyler,  who  succeeded  him,  being  Vice- 
President,  after  Harrison  had  only  been  a  few 
weeks  in  office,  and  had  died.  Tyler  proved 
not  to  be  a  Whig  at  all,  but  merely  an  admirer 
of  the  man  Clay. 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    THOUGHT  121 

So  far  as  we  can  see,  he  was  nominated  Vice- 
President  because  of  his  gift  of  ready  tears 
over  the  defeat  of  his  friend.  Next  term, 
1844,  Clay  lost  the  election  to  the  Democratic 
candidate,  this  time  by  his  "Raleigh  Letter." 
This  historic  letter  was  sent  to  a  friend  of 
Clay's  in  Alabama,  and  published  by  him, 
and  tradition  says  it  was  penned  under  a  great 
white  oak  in  what  was  lately  the  yard  of  Col- 
onel A.  B.  Andrews  on  Blount  Street.  In  this 
letter  he  advocated  the  admission  of  Texas  to 
the  Union  in  due  time,  and  thus  set  all  Aboli- 
tion New  England  against  his  candidacy. 
He  opposed  admitting  it  at  once,  and  thus  set 
his  Southern  friends  against  him. 

Tradition  says  that  he  showed  this  letter  to 
Judge  Badger  before  he  sent  it,  and  that  Bad- 
ger said,  ''That  letter  will  lose  you  your  can- 
didacy," to  which  he  replied  in  the  often 
quoted  words,  ''I  would  rather  be  right  than 
be  president." 

In  ideals  Clay  was  broadly  national,  and 
he  was  noted  as  a  compromiser,  and  a  soother 
of  men's  passions.  Personally  he  was  the 
very  ideal  man  in  the  imagination  of  the  spirit- 
ed youth  of  his  day,  ideal  in  faults  as  well  as  in 
virtues. 


Christ  Church  Rectory,  once  the  State  Bank,  whose 

FIRST   president   WAS    CoLONEL   VV.    PoLK.      It 

WAS    ONE    OF    THE   FIRST   THREE    BRICK 

BUILDINGS  IN    RaLEIGH 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    THOUGHT  123 

Old  men  have  told  me  that  since  the  War 
they  had  felt  homeless  as  regarded  political 
affiliation,  that  they  were  and  had  always  been 
''Henry  Clay  Whigs"  and  nothing  else.  Of 
his  great  body  of  adherents  it  might  be  said, 
"His  name  was  all  the  politics  they  knew." 

Education  in  the  South  in  those  days  as  ob- 
tained by  the  richer  classes  was  thorough,  but 
there  were  no  standardized  secondary  schools 
and  scarcely  any  conception  of  what  they 
might  mean. 

The  average  country  citizen  of  those  days 
was  likely  to  hold  the  view  of  Huckleberry 
Finn's  father:  "Your  father  and  your  mother 
couldn't  read  nor  write,  and  you  think  you  are 
better  than  your  father  because  you  can.  I'll 
take  it  out  of  you!"  Planters  might  employ 
governesses  and  tutors,  and  send  their  children 
to  pay  schools,  but  common  people  living  in 
rural  isolation  had  no  advantages  at  all  in 
schooling. 

Bartlett  Yancey  is  authority  for  the  state- 
ment that  in  Caswell  County  in  1800  one  half 
the  adult  white  population  could  not  read  and 
write,  and  that  this  great  proportion  grew 
greater  rather  than  less.     In  Wake   County 


124  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

things  must  have  been  better,  but  how  much 
better  we  do  not  know  how  to  discover. 

Judge  Gaston,  In  a  Fourth  of  July  toast  In 
1826,  speaks  of  North  CaroHna  as  sadly  prone 
in  matters  educational  "to  stumble  and  floun- 
der on  at  a  lazy  and  lagging  pace,"  and  again 
in  1827,  the  ''Legislature  habitually  looked 
with  indifference  upon  education." 

A  belief  among  the  leaders  that  this  was 
poor  policy  was  growing  each  year,  and  many 
tentative  debates  discussing  possibilities  of  es- 
tablishing common  schools  were  beginning  to 
be  held;  small  appropriations  were  being  laid 
aside  to  accumulate  looking  toward  the  es- 
tablishing of  an  adequate  fund  for  future  use; 
but  the  fact  remained  that  there  was  little  or 
no  general  demand  for  any  sort  of  free  school 
education  up  to  the  year  1840  or  '41. 

The  population  of  Wake  County  outside  of 
the  city  of  Raleigh  gradually  lessened,  and  be- 
came more  scattered  than  formerly  through 
the  rural  districts.  The  filling  up  of  the  west, 
which  had  begun  with  the  century  and  shortly 
before,  drew  thousands  of  North  Carolina 
people  over  the  turnpikes  to  Alabama  and 
Tennessee  and  far  away  to  Alissouri  and  the 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    THOUGHT  125 

"New  Purchase"  as  it  was  called.  At  the 
close  of  the  Revolution  the  population  of 
North  Carolina  approximated  the  same  num- 
ber as  did  that  of  New  York  State,  but  from 
the  war  of  1812  until  well  Into  the  forties,  the 
population  of  North  Carolina  was  at  a  com- 
parative   standstill. 

This  emigration,  the  following  of  families 
after  their  pathfinders,  the  talk  of  the  golden 
west  and  all  that,  made  a  great  appeal  to  the 
imagination  of  those  who  stayed  behind. 

Another  great  subject  for  discussion  which 
grew  more  and  more  heated  was  the  question 
of  slavery,  and  attack  and  defence  of  this 
"Institution"  was  mooted  from  one  end  of  the 
United  States  to  the  other. 

If  the  cotton  gin  had  lain  in  the  womb  of 
time  for  another  fifty  years,  slavery  in  the 
South  might  have  well  become  what  the 
doctors  call  a  self-limiting  disease  and  might 
have  followed  the  course  of  gradual  extinction 
it  had  begun  In  the  northern  States. 

Because  of  the  obvious  path  of  profit,  slavery 
grew  from  more  to  more,  especially  as  the 
south-west  was  opened  up. 


126  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

New  England,  always  didactic,  began  to  al- 
lude first  with  too  much  truth  to  Southern 
illiteracy,  then  as  time  went  on  to  express  her 
conscientious  scruples  as  to  the  sufferance  of 
slavery  in  any  part  of  the  Union. 

Nothing  in  the  general  life  and  thought  of 
the  New  England  states  had  impressed  the 
South  with  admiration,  the  two  conceptions  of 
life  being  at  variance.  Nothing  made  our 
people  imagine  that  moral  excellence  was 
greater  there  than  here,  and  these  reproaches 
were  felt  undeserved  and  fell  upon  ears  irritat- 
►ed  with  constant  clash  of  warring  sentiments 
and  opinions.  It  was  as  though  the  sister 
who  lived  at  home  and  needed  only  walk 
paved  streets,  should  count  for  a  sin  the  drag- 
gled skirts  of  her  whose  way  had  lain  through 
briars  and  muddy  ways. 

That  New  England  was  the  nearest  right 
if  not  most  righteous,  was  never  acknowledged 
at  the  South,  and  in  New  England  the  fact 
of  conditions  and  not  deliberate  choice  was 
carefully  ignored. 

Much  ink  was  spilt,  and  hard  sayings  on 
each  side  grew  harder,  and  anger  bred  pre- 
judice, and  aspersions  against  slavery  made 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    THOUGHT  127 

New  England's  educational  example  odious. 
Justice  in  this  world  can  never  be  perfect,  but 
perfect  justice  is  somehow  what  every  man 
claims  for  his  own.  Raleigh,  the  center  of 
North  Carolina's  political  life,  heard  many  a 
speech  about  this  bitter  controversy,  many  an 
echo  of  the  ever  growing  dispute. 

Another  subject  of  prime  interest  then,  as 
now,  was  the  building  of  roads,  and  added  to 
that  the  projecting  of  canals.  It  scarcely 
seems  possible,  but  the  idea  was  at  one  time 
entertained  that  the  City  of  Raleigh  must  be 
connected  with  the  sea  by  means  of  the  small 
creeks  that  run  to  Neuse  River  and  a  system 
of  canals  and  locks,  in  connection  with  that, 
stream,  in  order  to  have  a  commercial  outlet. 

The  State  of  New  York  had  recently  com- 
pleted the  Erie  Canal,  and  the  fashion  thus, 
set  was  admired, — this  before  the  days  of 
railroads. 

A  Scotch  engineer  engaged  for  the  State  by 
Mr.  Peter  Brown  made  calculations  on  this 
sort  of  a  plan,  on  a  salary  of  several  times  the 
pay  of  the  Governor.  In  the  early  twenties 
one  trip  is  said  to  have  been  made  to  New 
Berne  and  back,  with  many  difficulties.  Boat, 
a  scow;  captain,  James  Murray. 


o 

D 

aa  ^^ 

(T.       CO 


a    u 

o    > 

J    < 


O     O 

a    O 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    THOUGHT  129 

It  was  calculated  that  a  canal  was  practical 
from  Hunter's  Mill  on  Walnut  Creek,  the  pre- 
cise spot  of  the  Waterworks  pumping  station 
down  to  Neuse  River,  the  fall  being  sufficient, 
but  that  a  better  port  would  be  at  the  spot 
near  Bloomsbury  Park  where  Lassiter's  Mill 
stands  now,  and  a  better  canal  down  Crabtree 
Creek  to  the  river,  though  it  might  have  to  be 
longer. 

These  wild  schemes  had  to  be  discussed  be- 
cause prices,  owing  to  wagon  transportation, 
were  enormous.  The  salary  mark  was  far, 
far  lower  than  it  is  today,  and  yet  calico 
brought  one  dollar  per  yard,  broadcloth  was 
worth  from  seven  to  ten  dollars,  and  sugar  was 
at  the  figure  of  forty-five  cents  a  pound.  Nails 
came  by  the  dozen.  Truly  it  was  not  the 
choice  of  frugality  for  its  elevating  charm 
which  influenced  our  ancestors  toward  plain 
living,  but  necessity,  and  that  of  the  sternest. 

No  wonder  they  listened  to  fairy  tales  about 
easy  transportation  down  Neuse  River,  where, 
as  today,  at  some  seasons,  a  terrapin  could 
carry  flour  on  his  back  all  the  way  from  Raleigh 
to  New  Berne  without  wetting  his  load. 

One  romantic  thing,  as  we  call  it  now,  was 
part  of  daily  lives  then,  and  we  should  be  glad 


130  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

to  experience  the  thrill  ourselves.  The  stage 
from  the  North  came  In  over  the  Loulsburg 
Road,  and  went  southward  to  Fayetteville, 
stopping  at  Casso's  tavern  on  Fayetteville 
Street.  Three  times  a  week  at  first  it  came, 
then  daily.  The  sweet,  flourishing  notes  of 
the  coach  horns  could  be  heard  as  the  lumber- 
ing vehicle  came  into  town,  and  rolled  up  near 
the  Capitol.  This  was  the  link  with  the 
world  outside.  The  mail  came  In,  the  north- 
ern papers  with  their  European  news,  slowly 
brought  to  them  In  ships,  and  already  more 
than  a  month  old;  letters  at  fifty  and  twenty- 
five  cents  apiece,  according  to  distance  and 
weight.  Strangers  would  dismount  for  a 
moment  to  stretch  their  cramped  legs  a  bit, 
while  the  fresh  horses  were  put  to;  or  would 
dismount  and  spend  the  night  at  the  tavern. 

It  was  a  day's  trip  from  Warrenton  to 
Raleigh,  a  days'  trip  from  Fayetteville  to 
Raleigh.  The  passing  of  the  stages  was  the 
event  of  the  day,  and  reminds  us  of  the  ac- 
count In  one  of  Mark  Twain's  Inimitable  books 
of  the  passing  of  the  New  Orleans  packet  up 
the  river  In  his  youth.  If  any  one  had  wished 
to  know  the  census  of  the  able-bodied  popu- 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    THOUGHT  131 

latlon  of  Raleigh,  he  could  doubtless  have 
stepped  down  from  the  stage  and  counted 
them.  Not  one  would  wish  to  be  absent  when 
the  stage  rolled  in. 

Of  course  people  read  newspapers  in  those 
days,  and  there  were  good  ones,  although  the 
sheets  were  small,  and  had  no  sporting  page, 
and  no  Sunday  edition.  The  editorials  were 
dignified  and  well  written,  and  compare  with- 
out disparagement  with  what  we  get  today, 
and  these  weeklies  were  well  read  inside  and 
out,  as  newspapers  are  not  any  longer  read 
today,  since  the  armistice. 

The  Whig  paper  of  the  earHest  time  was 
called  the  Raleigh  Minerva,  and  was  publish- 
ed by  William  Boylan,  the  first  of  the  name  to 
come  to  Raleigh.  About  six  months  earlier  a 
paper  of  rival  politics,  a  Democratic  or  Jeffer- 
sonian  organ,  was  begun  by  Joseph  Gales,  an 
Englishman.  He  had  been  driven  away  from 
his  printing  office  in  Shefiield,  England,  be- 
cause of  his  sympathy  with  the  French  Revo- 
lution and  its  very  radical  developments,  such 
ideas  being  hateful  even  to  the  very  mobs, 
because  of  the  excesses  of  the  Terrorists. 
He  was  in  some  way  connected  with  Doctor 


132  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Priestley,  who  was  driven  away  from  Birming- 
ham by  mob  persecution,  a  man  a  hundred 
years  ahead  of  his  time,  who  also  was  forced 
to  spend  the  last  of  his  days  in  America. 

Joseph  Gales  came  to  America  with  Doctor 
Priestley  and  was  for  a  time  in  Philadelphia. 
Then  he  came  to  Raleigh  early  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  the  paper  he  edited  here 
bore  the  same  name  as  his  former  journal  in 
Sheffield,  ''The  Register.'"  For  many  years 
Joseph  Gales  was  state  printer.  Besides  these 
two,  there  was  a  third  sheet,  The  Star  which 
often  changed  hands,  although  it  was  pub- 
lished for  years. 

As  to  books,  the  City  of  Raleigh  in  early 
days  was  poorly  off.  Of  course  some  owned 
a  few  books,  which  were  read  and  re-read,  and 
learned  almost  by  heart,  to  good  purpose,  and 
letters  and  papers  of  the  time  show  that  liter- 
ary style  was  far  from  bad.  No  books  were 
printed  in  the  state  until  years  later,  save  a 
few  law  books.  The  list  given  in  Doctor 
Battle's  History  of  the  University  of  North 
Caroli^ia,  of  the  College  library  of  the  first 
of  the  century  past,  will  give  some  idea  of  the 
scarcity  of  all  that  we  should  call  readable. 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    THOUGHT  133 

Most  of  the  works  were  heavy  and  solid 
enough  to  kill  the  largest  rat  when  made  into 
a  dead-fall  and  allowed  to  drop  upon  him. 
Doctor  Battle  states  that  this  was  the  use 
made  of  Saint  Augustine's  works  in  folio  and 
other  substantial  volumes  which  were  borrow- 
ed from  the  University  library  for  this  express 
purpose.  However  that  may  be,  there  was 
little  to  read  in  Raleigh  then  but  law,  classics 
and  theology,  with  a  very  few  novels  which 
were  heavy  to  hold  if  not  to  read.  I  have 
before  me  a  copy  of  ''Sir  Charles  Grandison,^^ 
owned  in  Raleigh  in  1813  or  '14,  which  is  as 
large  as  a  family  Bible,  has  two  columns  of 
rather  small  print,  and  seven  hundred  pages. 
This  light  work  was  a  reprint  from  the  seven 
volumes  originally  issued,  and  is  dated  1810, 
printed  in  London. 

The  eating  and  drinking  which  built  up  life 
from  its  physical  side  was  much  like  the  food 
of  today,  and  yet  unlike  in  many  ways. 

Chicago  beef  was  not  to  be  had,  nor  was 
there  an  abattoir,  nor  an  ice  plant.  Local  sup- 
plies were  all  that  obtained,  and  much  more 
pork  and  bacon  was  used  by  all  classes. 
Vegetables  were  raised  the  same  as  now,  but 


O     t- 

CO    5 


H  2: 

«  < 

2:  > 

2  i: 

o  w 


o   o 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    THOUGHT  135 

the  COW  pea  was  considered  food  for  beasts 
alone,  and  the  useful  tomato  was  unknown. 
Canning  was  a  thing  unpracticed,  although 
dried  fruit  was  plentifully  used.  A  little 
"pound  for  pound"  preserves  for  state  oc- 
casions was  kept  on  hand  from  year  to  year. 
Sugar  was  scarce  and  molasses  of  the  home- 
grown sort  took  the  place  of  it.  The  import- 
ed molasses  was  most  delicious,  being  far 
better  than  it  has  been  since,  and  was  the  ac- 
cepted sweetening  for  many  foods.  Hospitali- 
ty laid  stress  on  one  sort  of  refreshment  that 
is  but  a  sad  memory  to  the  thirsty.  Imported 
and  domestic  wines  and  liquors  were  used  in 
great  variety,  and  every  gentleman  considered 
it  his  duty  to  have  such  things  on  hand  for  the 
chance  guest,  however  he  might  prefer  to 
abstain  himself.  Hence  the  mahogany  cel- 
larets which  still  grace  many  old  fashioned 
dining  rooms,  and  the  portly  glass  decanters 
which  are  now  set  back  on  the  china-closet 
shelves,  but  used  to  stand  out  within  reach. 
As  regards  the  furniture  that  we  are  still 
carefully  collecting,  are  we  not  sure  that  the 
things  then  bought  and  admired  are  still  the 
most  beautiful  that  are  obtainable.^      Do  we 


136  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

not  regard  thus  all  old  sofas  and  desks  and 
secretaires  and  what  not? 

Has  there  ever  been  more  satisfactory  silver- 
ware than  the  gracefully  shaped  spoons  and 
pierced  fruit  baskets  that  we  treasure  with 
pride  and  buy  now  and  then  for  great  prices? 

Household  work  was  far  greater  then  than 
it  is  now,  and  the  notable  housewife  must  be 
like  Solomon's  virtuous  woman  in  her  cease- 
less activities.  Providing  work  and  super- 
vision for  the  many  and  lazy  servants  made  her 
rise  early  and  be  ceaselessly  busy.  Even 
Colonel  Byrd,  though  not  enthusiastic  about 
the  men,  acknowledges  that  the  women  of 
early  North  Carolina  were  a  thrifty  race,  and 
we  may  be  sure  that  they  knew  how  to  sew 
and  knit  and  dye  and  weave  and  embroider 
and  care  for  meats  and  supervise  all  the  varied 
domestic  arts. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  the  twenties 
and  the  thirties  young  folk  were  considered 
very  mannerless  and  unmanageable. 

The  spinning  of  "street  yarn"  was  much  dep- 
recated, the  extreme  idleness  of  young  men 
was  cerlsured  in  private  letters  and  in  the 
newspapers,  and  older  folk  were  caused  much 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    THOUGHT  137 

anxiety  by  the  strange  tendency  of  the 
young  girls  to  dress  up  and  go  out  gadding 
when  there  was  work  for  them  to  do  at  home! 
All  these  many  things,  great  and  small,  go 
to  make  up  the  tenor  of  the  lives  of  our  fore- 
runners. Sometimes  the  small  are  more  impor- 
tant than  the  great  in  filling  up  the  many  de- 
tails which  add  most  to  the  picture,  and  it 
is  a  picture  that  I  am  trying,  awkwardly 
perhaps,  but  anxiously,  to  place  before  your 
eyes. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
GianH  of  Those  Days 

OLONEL  WILLIAM  POLK, 

coming  fromMecklenburgCounty 
to  Raleigh  very  early  in  its  history, 
was  a  figure  of  great  prominence 
here,  and  would  still  have  been 
were  his  adoptive  city  a  far  larger  place.  He 
came  of  that  well  known  Polk  family  which 
lived  in  Mecklenburg  before  the  Revolution, 
and  was  cousin  to  President  Polk.  In  his 
youth  he  was  an  eye-witness  to  the  signing 
of  the  Mecklenburg  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, and  it  is  so  stated  in  the  Life  of  Leonidas 
K.  Polk.  He  enlisted  in  the  Continental  Army 
when  a  mere  boy  and  was  In  active  ser- 
vice all  through  the  Revolutionary  War.  He 
was  twice  wounded,  very  severely  at  the  battle 
of  Germantown.  He  suffered  that  sad  winter 
at  Valley  Forge  with  Washington,  and  he  was 
also  present  with  him  at  Yorktown. 

He  was  twice  married,  his  first  wife  dying 
before  he  came  to  Raleigh.  His  second  wife 
was  a  i^Jiss  Hawkins  of  Warrenton,  In  Warren 


GIANTS    OF    THOSE    DAYS  139 

County.  She  bore  him  nine  children  of  whom 
the  second  was  Leonidas  K.  Polk. 

Colonel  Polk  came  to  Raleigh  in  the  year 
1799  to  become  the  first  president  of  the  State 
Bank,  serving  without  compensation.  His 
home  was  a  large  house  which  used  to  close 
the  end  of  Blount  Street  just  as  the  Centennial 
School  now  closes  Fayetteville  Street.  It  was 
standing  ten  years  ago,  and  was  used  for  a 
while  after  the  war  for  a  girls'  school. 

The  old  State  Bank  where  Colonel  Polk 
presided  is  now  used  for  the  Rectory  of 
Christ  Church  and  is  the  third  brick  building 
which  was  erected  in  Raleigh,  the  first  one  be- 
ing the  old  State  House,  the  second  Casso's 
Hotel,  now  used  for  stores  and  some  of  the 
State  offices,  at  the  corner  of  Morgan  and  Fay- 
etteville, still  sturdy  and  substantial.  The 
State  Bank  building  was  much  laughed  at, 
in  the  early  day,  because  it  was  considered 
queer  architecture.  One  can  still  trace  the 
newer  bricks  where  the  old  Bank  door  was 
built  up  on  the  New  Berne  Avenue  side.  "Two 
porches,  and  a  house  between,  like  the  ham 
sandwich." 


140  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Colonel  Polk  of  those  days  was  a  tall  stately 
imposing  figure,  of  old-fashioned  formal  man- 
ner, and  ceremonious  dignity,  but  capable  of 
unbending  genially  on  occasion.  He  was  a 
citizen  for  everyone  to  be  proud  of,  the  man 
whom  his  neighbors  honored  and  called  upon 
to  welcome  distinguished  guests  and  be  the 
presiding  genius  of  public  meetings  and  toast- 
master  at  banquets  on  state  occasions.  In 
politics  he  was  an  old  time  Federalist,  but  in  his 
youth  he  had  a  boy  friend,  a  neighbor  in 
Mecklenburg  County  whose  name  was  An- 
drew Jackson. 

The  halo  which  surrounded  this  venerable 
Revolutionary  figure  grew  brighter  as  time 
went  on  and  thinned  the  ranks  of  his  fellow 
soldiers  and  the  story  of  their  deeds  became  a 
sort  of  legend.  At  his  death  he  was  probably 
the  last  survivor  of  the  Revolutionary  officers 
in  all  North  Carolina. 

Colonel  Polk,  like  other  gentlemen  of  his 
time,  was  a  convivial  soul,  as  no  one  thought 
harm  of  being;  but  he  was  no  vulgar  roysterer 
and  he  took  a  firm  stand  against  duelling, 
then  an  accepted  way  of  protecting  ''honor" 
and  settling  controversies.     On  one  occasion 


GIANTS    OF    THOSE    DAYS  141 

he  wrote  for  publication  a  strong  letter  con- 
demning the  practice,  and  this  had  great 
weight  because  it  was  from  a  man  so  well 
known  to  be  of  distinguished  courage.  This 
declaration  was  needed,  as  at  least  one  duel 
had  been  fought  about  that  time  by  a  Wake 
County  man. 

Alfred  Jones  of  White  Plains  was  a  party  in 
a  duel  about  1820,  and  was  badly  wounded. 
He  always  declared  that  though  he  nearly 
died  of  his  wound,  he  considered  the  mental 
anguish  he  suffered  for  a  few  seconds  while 
looking  down  his  opponent's  murderous  pistol- 
barrel  was  more  grim  and  unforgetable  than  the 
physical  pain  of  the  wound.  He  felt  his  honor 
entirely  less  satisfied. 

To  return  to  Colonel  Polk.  He  was  one  of 
those  who  owned  great  tracts  of  land  in  Ten- 
nessee, and  was  once  making  a  trip  into  that 
state  on  business  connected  with  his  property, 
when  he  saw,  leaning  over  a  fence  beside  his 
road,  a  man  whom  he  at  once  recognized,  and 
whom  he  knew  only  too  well.  It  was  a  Tory, 
who  had  formerly  lived  neighbor  to  his  father 
in  Mecklenburg,  and  who  had  taken  an  oppor- 
tunity while  the  men  of  the  family  were  away 


142  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

in  the  army  to  wreck  and  plunder  his  father's 
plantation.  The  Colonel,  knowing  him  for 
this  deed  and  knowing  that  he  had  got  off 
scot  free,  handed  his  horse's  rein  to  his  com- 
panion, and  withoutone  word,  dismounted  and 
fell  like  an  avalanche  upon  the  astonished 
man,  giving  him  a  horsewhipping  that  was  en- 
tirely consoling  to  the  giver,  as  well  as  fully 
satisfying  to  the  recipient.  State  Treasurer 
Haywood  was  the  authority  for  this  anecdote. 

Another  story  tells  of  his  showing  the  young 
folk  how  to  dance  a  minuet  in  the  stately 
fashion  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Miss  Betsy 
Geddy  of  the  statue-saving  fame  being  his 
vis-a-vis  and  dancing  partner. 

When  his  son  Leonidas,  just  graduated  from 
West  Point,  insisted  upon  resigning  from  the 
army  to  study  for  the  Episcopal  ministry, 
Colonel  Polk  could  neither  understand  nor  be- 
come resigned  to  it.  It  is  said  that  he  spoke 
of  it  for  some  time  with  an  oath  whenever  he 
mentioned  it. 

Cousin  to  one  President  of  the  United 
States,  friend  of  another.  Colonel  Polk  was 
the  man  who  chanced  to  put  a  bit  of  bread 
into  the  mouth  of  a  third.     Jacob  Johnson, 


GIANTS    OF    THOSE    DAYS  143 

father  of  Andrew  Johnson,  Lincoln's  successor 
in  the  Presidency,  was  for  many  years  porter 
and  factotum  at  the  State  Bank,  under  Col- 
onel Polk,  and  afterward. 

This  man  Johnson  was  absolutely  unedu- 
cated, but  Governor  Swain  describes  his  quick 
heroism  in  saving  Mr.  T.  Henderson  from 
drowning  in  Hunter's  pond,  according  to  ac- 
count by  William  Peace.  It  was  at  a  picnic, 
and  the  canoe  overset  and  Henderson  was  un- 
able to  swim.  Johnson  lived  in  a  small  house 
near  Casso's  Hotel.  Miss  Margaret  Casso  nam- 
ed the  future  President  Andrew  Jackson,  al- 
though he  afterward  dropped  the  middle 
name.  A  newspaper  advertisement  is  still 
in  existence  offering  a  reward  for  the  return  of 
this  Raleigh  boy  to  his  legal  guardians,  when 
he  ran  away  from  his  apprenticeship  at  about 
twelve  years  of  age. 

Successor  to  Colonel  Polk  at  the  State  Bank 
was  William  Boylan,  the  first  of  the  name. 
He  was  editor  of  the  Raleigh  Minerva^  some- 
time state  printer,  and  he  was  also  a  rich 
planter,  dying  worth  a  million  dollars  at  the 
time  when  millionaires  were  most  unusual 
and  money  was  far  more  valuable.     Mr  Boy- 


144  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Ian  came  originally  from  New  Jersey,  but  had 
kin  In  North  Carolina.  His  portrait  shows  a 
face  of  a  very  different  character  from  the 
others  of  that  gallery.  He  looks,  among  those 
great  lawyers,  like  a  sedate  business  man  and 
his  qualities  of  mind  were  the  prophecy  of 
coming  times.  Mr.  Boylan  was  public-spirit- 
ed and  progressive.  He  first  saw  the  possi- 
bilities, and  set  the  example  of  raising  great 
quantities  of  cotton  on  the  uplands  of  Wake. 
Whitney's  cotton  gin  had  made  the  growing 
of  cotton  profitable  because  the  gin  could  re- 
move the  seed  from  a  thousand  pounds  of 
cotton  in  a  day,  which  labor  previously  had 
to  be  done  slowly  and  tediously  by  hand. 
Also  the  invention  of  the  power-driven  loom 
and  spinning  machinery  made  more  cotton 
necessary  to  keep  the  looms  of  the  world  at 
work,  and  the  development  of  the  necessary 
inventions  had  built  up  a  mighty  industry. 
Mr.  Boylan  planted  acres  of  cotton  where 
square  rods  had  been  the  custom  before.  He 
also  became  interested  In  transportation,  and 
a  heavy  investor  in  our  first  railroads.  He 
was  at  one  time  president  of  the  Raleigh  and 
Gaston  Railroad.  Governor  Swain  says  of 
him  that  he  was  dignified  and  grave,  and  it 


GIANTS    OF    THOSE    DAYS  145 

also  is  sure  that  he  must  have  been  charitable, 
for  he  is  responsible  for  the  building  of  the 
first  county  poor-house  in  Wake.  Before 
that  the  County  poor  were  boarded  out  with 
the  lowest  bidder  at  county  expense;  a  hard 
arrangement. 

Doctor  Kemp  Battle,  from  whose  centen- 
nial address  many  details  of  this  old  time  may 
be  gathered,  tells  a  story  of  how  Mr.  Boylan 
sent  loads  of  wood  around  to  the  poor,  caught 
as  they  were  without  fuel  in  the  time  of  the 
wonderful  "big  snow  of  '57."  He  states  that 
one  ''son  of  rest"  keeping  warm  abed  that  cold- 
est morning,  humped  up  in  his  mound  of  bed- 
ding to  inquire  whether  Mr.  Boylan  "had  had 
that  wood  cut  up  to  fit  his  fireplace  before  it 
was  loaded  on  the  wagon  .^" 

Mr.  Boylan  lived  in  the  Joel  Lane  house 
which  he  had  bought  from  Peter  Brown. 
But  one  undignified  thing  is  told  of  him — that 
is  his  part  in  the  fight  which  he  and  Joseph 
Gales,  rival  editors,  fought  about  some  politi- 
cal question.  In  this  Mr.  Gales  was  worsted, 
and  brought  suit  for  damages,  which  were 
awarded  to  the  sum  of  two  hundred  dollars, 
which  amount  he  donated  to  the  Academy. 


»l 


GIANTS    OF    THOSE    DAYS  147 

The  two  worthy  combatants  were  after- 
ward reconciled  and  shook  hands  in  token  of 
amity.  Mr.  Boylan  died  in  1859,  his  Hfe  thus 
spanning  the  whole  time  of  industrial  and 
material  growth  before  the  war. 

Peter  Brown,  Esquire,  was  a  lawyer  and  a 
bachelor.  He  came  to  Raleigh  in  the  first 
years  of  its  existence,  but  in  his  old  age  he 
wished  to  return  to  Scotland,  or  thought  he 
did;  so  he  sold  his  property,  including  the 
historic  Joel  Lane  house  as  above,  and  went 
back  across  the  water.  He  had  contracted 
the  Raleigh  habit  however,  and  matter  of 
fact  as  he  appeared,  he  let  sentiment  take  him 
back  to  Scotland,  and  then  bring  him  back 
again  to  North  Carolina,  where  he  died  after 
all. 

Peter  Brown  also  took  a  turn  at  being  presi- 
dent of  the  State  Bank.  He  knew  something 
of  the  Scotch  ideas  of  banking,  said  to  be  the 
best  at  that  time.  He  was  a  lawyer  of  ability 
as  well  as  a  financier,  and  was  for  some  time 
the  only  practicing  attorney  in  Raleigh.  His 
oddity  was  great  as  his  ability.  Once  he 
found  occasion  to  move  his  law  office,  and 
when  ready  for  business  in  the  new  quarters, 


148  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

he  hung  out  the  following  notice:  ''Peter 
Brown,  Attorney  at  Law,  has  moved  from 
where  he  was,  to  where  he  now  is;  where  he 
may  henceforth  at  all  times  be  found."  No 
ambiguity  in  that! 

Judge  Seawell,  nephew  of  Nathaniel  Macon, 
was  one  of  the  legal  lights  of  the  time.  He 
married  a  daughter  of  James  Hinton,  son  of 
Colonel  John  the  first,  and  his  descendants 
live  here  still.  He  was  a  well-known  lawyer 
and  citizen  representing  this  county  in  the 
Assembly  several  terms. 

Moses  Mordecai,  the  first  of  the  family  of 
legal  and  other  prominence,  came  to  Raleigh 
in  time  to  buy  a  lot  at  the  second  city  sale. 
Only  recently  has  the  great  square,  with  the 
old  mansion  built  far  back  upon  it,  been  finally 
divided  into  smaller  lots.  Mr.  Mordecai's 
first  and  second  wives  were  sisters,  Margaret 
and  Annie  Lane,  daughters  of  Joel  Lane. 
Many  of  their  descendants  are  among  us  now. 

One  of  the  old  time  merchants  was  William 
Peck,  who  did  a  banking  and  mercantile  busi- 
ness at  the  south-east  corner  of  the  Capitol 
facing  Wilmington  Street.  He  was  a  hatter 
by  trade,  a  safe  man  and  a  good  citizen.     He 


GIANTS    OF    THOSE    DAYS  149 

admired  the  new  Capitol  as  It  gradually  rose 
from  foundation  to  dome  and  watched  Its 
progress  day  by  day  from  his  shop  door,  com- 
plaining mightily  when  the  grading  up  of  the 
square  began,  and  because  of  the  bank  of  earth 
in  front  of  him  he  could  no  longer  see  the 
whole  building  In  Its  entirety.  Like  Judge 
Cloud  of  State-wide  fame,  he  disliked  whist- 
ling as  a  means  of  self-expression,  and  of  course 
all  the  small  boys  of  Raleigh  took  care  to 
make  a  long,  shrill,  ear-piercing  effort,  just  as 
they  rounded  his  corner  on  a  dead  run.  A 
story  Is  told  of  him,  a  legend  which  Is  a  sort  of 
classical  myth  of  the  days  of  private  banks  of 
issue,  and  which  Is  printed  in  that  old  book, 
''Flush  Times  in  Alabama  and  Mississippi,'^ 
a  story  which  may  be  true,  but  Is  at  any  rate 
a  good  parable,  and  runs  this  way: 

A  Mississippi  horse-trader  wanted  to  buy 
exchange  on  North  Carolina,  and  bargained 
for  a  draft  on  Mr.  Peck's  banking  Institution. 
His  exchange  cost  him  ten  dollars  a  thousand. 
Then  the  banker  In  Mississippi  asked  if  his 
customer  would  do  him  the  favor  of  carrying 
a  small  package  with  him  to  North  Carolina 
to  be   delivered   to   his   ^'old   friend.    Peck." 


150  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

The  trader  easily  consented  to  do  this.  On 
arrival  in  Raleigh  he  presented  his  draft,  and 
Mr.  Peck  was  most  positive  that  he  owed  the 
bank  in  Mississippi  nothing,  but  would  like 
to  look  over  his  books  and  make  sure. 
As  he  turned  to  go,  the  trader  handed  the 
package  to  Mr.  Peck,  with  the  message,  and 
when  unsealed,  it  contained  the  North  Caro- 
lina bills  necessary  to  offset  the  draft.  The 
trader  had  paid  ten  dollars  a  thousand  for  his 
exchange,  and  then  had  taken  the  risk  of 
bringing  his  own  money  that  long,  dangerous 
way  besides.  This  is  a  good  story  to  illustrate 
the  working  of  the  banking  methods  in  vogue 
before  railroads  and  national  banks  were  in 
existence. 

Jokes  are  the  most  difficult  things  to  trans- 
plant out  of  the  time  that  gives  them  being, 
but  there  is  an  old  joke  which  might  be  told 
here,  connected  with  Mr.  Peck.  It  is  a  true 
tale,  well  avouched  this  time.  One  night  the 
great  beaver,  twice  natural  size,  which  swung 
over  the  door  of  his  shop  and  was  his  sign, 
disappeared  unaccountably.  Next  morning 
a  student  at  the  University  appeared  in  chapel 
with  this  hat  balanced  on  his  head  and  further 


GIANTS    OF    THOSE    DAYS  151 

disguised  with  huge  goggles  and  a  long  coat, 
with  a  cane  in  hand.  This  brought  down  the 
house  and  broke  up  prayers  for  that  morning, 
as  it  might  well  have  done  with  several  hun- 
dred young  scapegraces  fairly  pining  for  an  ex- 
cuse for  a  demonstration.  The  naughty  boy 
who  stole  the  hatter's  sign  was  named  R.  S. 
Tucker,  and,  in  partnership  with  his  brother, 
became  a  considerable  merchant  himself  in 
after  days.  The  father,  Ruffin  Tucker,  had 
settled  in  Raleigh  some  years  before  this  and 
was  by  trade  a  printer.  Descendants  of 
this  man  are  among  those  successful  in  busi- 
ness of  the  city. 

Dr.  McPheeters,  who  has  already  been  men- 
tioned as  head  of  the  Academy  and  as  ''Town 
Pastor,"  was  a  very  interesting  figure  of  old 
Raleigh.  He  took  his  calling  in  dead  earnest, 
and  ruled  on  week  days  and  on  Sundays  con- 
tinuously, so  that  the  boy  who  played  hooky 
and  went  fishing  on  Sunday  instead  of  to 
church  and  Sunday  School,  was  made  to  regret 
his  mistake  when  he  reached  day-school 
Monday  morning. 

Once  Dr.  McPheeters  was  about  to 
visit  the  sins  of  his  youth  in  this  way  upon  the 
future  Bishop  of  Louisiana,  and  Lonnie  Polk 


GIANTS    OF    THOSE    DAYS  153 

broke  away  and  ran  for  It.  He  was  Instantly- 
pursued,  caught,  and  birched  by  the  Doctor 
who  on  that  occasion  laid  down  the  law  In  an 
axiom  which  is  old  but  by  no  means  obsolete. 
*'No  boy,"  said  Dr.  McPheeters,  ''who  Is 
not  old  enough  to  behave  properly  when  he 
knows  he  has  been  fairly  warned,  is  too  old 
to  be  whipped  for  misbehavior." 

The  Peace  brothers  were  men  of  diligence  and 
probity,  successful  merchants.  William  left 
a  sum  for  the  building  of  Peace  Institute. 
They  were  both  bachelors,  and  their  name 
suited  their  character.  One  of  the  city  streets 
Is  named  after  them. 

Ihave  mentioned  Joseph  Gales  and  his  estab- 
lishing the  first  newspaper,  also  his  connection 
by  birth  and  association  with  the  ferment  of 
new  thought  in  the  manufacturing  districts  of 
middle  England.  After  his  printing  office  was 
wrecked  and  he  was  driven  to  emigrate,  he 
came  from  Philadelphia  to  Raleigh.  He  was  a 
man  of  resources,  bringing  some  capital  with 
him,  and  having  the  knowledge  needful  to 
start  a  paper  mill  to  supply  his  press. 

His  wife,  Mrs  Winifred  Gales,  was  highly 
educated    and    had   ability.      She  wrote    the 


154  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

first  novel  that  was  ever  written  and  printed 
in  North  Carohna,  although  not  many  have 
been  produced  since.  We  have  never  caught 
the  writer's  itch;  however,  it  may  some  day 
come  to  us.  She  is  "the  first  that  ever  burst" 
into  the  '^silent  sea"  of  North  Carolina  author- 
ship. She  died  in  1839,  her  husband  two 
years  later.  They  lie  buried  in  the  old  City 
Cemetery.  Beside  their  graves  are  those  of 
two  grown  daughters  lost  a  few  years  earlier, 
victims  to  one  of  those  recurring  epidemics  of 
malaria  that  took  toll  of  so  many  who  did  not 
know  that  m.osquitoes  and  a  prevailing  souther- 
ly wind  over  Hunter's  pond  on  Walnut  Creek 
were  the  combined  cause  of  so  much  chills  and 
fever  in  the  town  of  Raleigh.  The  Gales  have 
still  descendants  living  in  Raleigh  and  claim- 
ing the  city  as  home. 

David  L.  Swain  lies  buried  in  Oakwood 
Cemetery,  and  he  lived  his  formative  years 
here,  although  he  was  chiefly  known  by  his 
later  work  as  President  of  the  University  of 
North  Carolina.  As  a  young  man  he  came  to 
Raleigh,  and  studied  law  with  Chief  Justice 
Taylor,  who  married  the  only  sister  of  Judge 
Gaston. 


GIANTS    OF    THOSE    DAYS  155 

Although  born  in  Buncombe  County,  and 
coming  to  Wake  after  he  was  a  man  grown, 
Swain  was  near  akin  to  the  Lanes  and  other 
famiHes  connected  with  them;  his  mother  be- 
ing Caroline,  sister  of  Joel  Lane,  and  he  being 
the  son  by  her  second  husband,  named  as 
they  say  after  the  first,  David  Lowrie. 

Not  many  educational  advantages  came  to 
this  lad  in  the  western  wilds,  and  young  Swain 
had  scanty  schooling,  and  but  four  months  of 
university  instruction,  before  he  went  to 
Raleigh  to  study  law.  Every  crumb  of  learn- 
ing that  came  his  way  he  seized  and  assimilated, 
and  every  book  which  he  laid  his  hands  upon 
he  read,  especially  absorbing  all  obtainable 
history.  Though  his  early  life  was  not  so 
sordid  and  pinched  as  that  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, yet  his  education  and  development  bear 
some  likeness  to  that  of  Lincoln,  because  he 
was  like  him,  a  rough  diamond,  and  took 
polish  from  all  the  friction  of  later  life;  and  be- 
cause his  education  was  in  progress  all  during 
that  later  life. 

When  he  had  won  his  law  license  he  return- 
ed to  Buncombe,  and  was  immediately  sent 
to  represent  that  county  in  the  next  Assembly. 


156  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Here  he  attended  to  the  important  bill  in- 
troduced by  him,  for  building  the  French 
Broad  Turnpike,  leading  west  into  Tennessee. 
In  1829,  he  received  an  odd  compliment,  be- 
ing elected  Solicitor  for  the  Edenton  District 
because  factional  fighting  had  become  des- 
perately bitter,  and  only  a  man  from  out- 
side the  district  could  be  tolerated.  Next  he 
was  appointed  Judge  of  the  Superior  Court, 
and  was  chosen  over  Henry  Seawell,  of  Ral- 
eigh, a  man  of  greater  known  distinction  and 
a  most  excellent  lawyer.  His  judgeship  was 
but  another  step   upward. 

He  was  elected  Governor  of  North  Carolina 
by  the  Legislature,  as  was  the  constitutional 
provision  at  that  time,  and  was  re-elected  for 
two  succeeding  years.  During  his  term  as 
Governor  he  represented  Buncombe  County 
in  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1836. 
This  Convention  was  to  change  the  Con- 
stitution of  North  Carolina  in  many  details, 
and  among  other  matters  to  amend  the  laws 
governing  the  representation  of  the  different 
sections  of  the  State  in  the  Assembly.  Gover- 
nor Swain  was  full  of  detailed  information  re- 
garding the  State's  history  and  statistics,  from 
the  earliest  Colonial  times,  and  he  led  the  re- 


GIANTS    OF    THOSE    DAYS  157 

form  party  which  equalized  differences 
between  the  east  and  the  west — matters 
which  had  never  been  adjusted,  and  which  had 
stirred  up  strife  between  the  sections  ever 
since  the  Revolution. 

In  this  same  year,  Doctor  Joseph  Caldwell, 
President  of  the  University,  died,  and  Gover- 
nor Swain  asked  his  friend  Judge  Nash 
whether  he  could  recommend  him  for  appoint- 
ment to  the  vacancy.  Judge  Nash  thought, 
naturally  enough,  of  formal  academic  educa- 
tion, and  of  the  lack  of  such  preparation  which 
Governor  Swain's  exclusively  political  life 
must  present.  All  that  he  would  promise  was 
to  consult  Judge  Cameron  about  the  requests 
The  latter  held  a  diiferent  opinion.  He  de- 
clared that  Governor  Swain  had  all  nec- 
essary requisites  for  the  position  except  formal 
scholarship;  that  he  had  always  been  able  to 
manage  men,  and  should  know  well  how  to 
manage  boys,  and  that  his  education,  while 
not  conventional,  was  far  broader  than  might 
be  supposed. 

At  the  next  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Trus- 
tees Swain  was  elected  President  of  the  Uni- 
versity and  went  to  Chapel  Hill  to  take  up  his 


GIHNTS    OF    THOSE    DAYS  159 

real  crowning  life-work.  Hence  some  humorist 
has  said  that  the  State  of  North  Carolina 
had  given  him  every  office  in  her  power,  and 
had  at  last  sent  him  to  college  to  get  an  edu- 
cation. This  was  an  unjust  taunt  to  a  man 
so  well  self-taught,  and  whose  cultivation  was 
a  progressive  process  lasting  all  his  life.  He 
himself  was  the  Historical  Society,  and  his 
collections  of  documents  were  very  complete 
for  that  early  time.  The  historian  Bancroft 
used  his  collections  and  consulted  his  knowl- 
edge for  the  chapters  in  his  History  of  the 
United  States  which  concern  North  Carolina. 
Governor  Swain's  political  strength  had  been 
aided  greatly  by  his  unerring  memory  for 
kinship,  names  and  dates,  and  this  gift  also 
helped  him  in  his  knowledge  and  management 
of  his  boys.  His  legal  power  was  founded  on 
his  grasp  of  detail,  and  by  this  also  he  was 
fitted  to  record  the  history  of  the  State  he 
loved. 

Papers  in  the  University  Magazine,  by  his 
hand,  and  a  few  occasional  addresses  full  of 
dry  humor,  are  all  that  he  left  as  formal 
writings  of  a  historical  nature,  and  these  are 
all  too  few;  but  they  give  a  presentment  of 


160  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

the  life  that  then  was,  on  the  far  side  of  that 
bloody  chasm  which  was  to  divide  all  our  his- 
tory in  twain. 

Like  Judge  Gaston,  Governor  Swain  was  a 
Federalist  in  poHtics,  and  became  later  a 
Whig.  He  married  Eleanor  White  of  Raleigh, 
the  daughter  of  William  White,  Secretary  of 
State,  and  a  grand-daughter  of  Governor 
Caswell.  He  died  in  1868,  some  say  of 
grief  over  the  wreck  of  his  beloved  University, 
accomplished  in  the  disheartening  Recon- 
struction days.  In  person  he  was  a  tall, 
awkward  man,  one  of  those  whose  appearance 
lends  point  to  some  humorous  nick-name. 
His  students  called  Governor  Swain  ''Old 
Bunk,"  referring  to  his  native  county. 

It  is  only  in  Governor  Swain's  reminiscences 
of  Raleigh  that  we  gather  the  traits  of  the 
lesser  folk,  lesser  only  in  not  being  conspicu- 
ous as  State  officials.  He  mentions  and  char- 
acterizes many,  of  whom  v/e  may  mention 
Mr.  Casso,  the  Italian  tavern  keeper  whose 
descendants  are  many,  Dugald  McKeithan 
who  married  a  Lane,  the  cousin  of  the  Gover- 
nor, John  Meares,  James  McKee,  Benjamin 
King,  Captain,  afterwards  Sheriff  Wyatt,  the 


GIANTS    OF    THOSE    DAYS  161 

first  member  of  the  Briggs  family,  the  original 
David  Royster,  cabinet-maker  (this  last  was 
in  Raleigh  by  1801),  John  Stewart  who  mar- 
ried Miss  Margaret  Casso  and  is  the  ancestor 
of  the  Binghams  of  Mebane,  James  Coman,  a 
Frenchman,  the  Smiths,  substantial  mer- 
chants, whose  heir.  Miss  Mary  Smith,  after- 
wards Mrs.  Morehead,  left  her  money  to  the 
University,  Ruffin  Tucker  who  has  been  men- 
tioned, who  worked  for  twenty-five  dollars  a 
year  and  board  during  his  first  year  in  Raleigh. 

John  Rex,  the  tanner,  will  be  mentioned 
more  fully  later.  One  John  S.  Raboteau,  a 
French  Huguenot,  a  saddler  by  trade,  should 
be  named  here,  for  his  grand-daughter  married 
A.  F.  Page,  and  through  her  he  is  ancestor 
of  the  great  Ambassador  to  England,  and  his 
brothers,  builders  of  North  Carolina.  Sheriff 
Page,  recently  dead,  was  of  kin  to  these. 

Also  there  was  a  Captain  Wiatt  who  built 
the  houseon  Hillsborough  road  where  the  High- 
way Commission's  great  shops  stand  today, 
and  who  was  the  Marshall  of  the  Supreme 
Court  for  many  years.  He  came  from  Vir- 
ginia, was  a  veteran  of  1812,  and  built  a 
country  home  almost  like  the  one  of  about  the 


162  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

same  epoch  belonging  to  General  Calvin  Jones, 
his  comrade  in  arms.  Captain  Wiatt  had  a 
wayside  well  which  was  used  by  all  the  passers- 
by.  He  was  also  celebrated  for  the  kindness 
of  his  heart  and  the  great  freedom  of  his  com- 
mand of  bad  language.  He  was  one  of  those 
who  swore  terribly,  although  this  is  all  that 
was  ever  said  in  his  dispraise.  His  home  has 
been  very  long  a  landmark  of  the  county. 


CHAPTER  VII 
More  Biographies 

N  a  previous  chapter  we  sketched 
Colonel  William  Polk,  the  Rev- 
olutionary hero  who  was  so  much 
the  leading  citizen  of  Raleigh 
for  so  many  years,  and  for  the 
completion  of  the  story  of  our  best  example 
of  character  transmitted  from  father  to  son 
and  built  up  in  the  Raleigh  of  old  time,  we 
shall  add  a  life  of  his  son,  Leonidas,  who  be- 
came the  celebrated  Bishop-Brigadier  of  the 
Confederate  Army. 

We  are  not  able  to  claim  possession  of 
that  great  ''Revolutionary  Titan,"  as  Gov- 
ernor Swain  calls  John  Marshall,  who  rode 
his  circuit  as  United  States  Justice,  and  was 
thus  a  regular  visitor  to  Raleigh,  riding  alone 
from  Richmond  all  those  dreary  miles  in  his 
gig.  The  trip  took  him  a  week.  We  may  re- 
tell, however,  the  stories  still  remembered  of 
him,  of  his  simplicity,  his  kindly  good  nature, 
of  how  he  loved  to  pitch  horseshoes  with  the 
townsfolk,  of  afternoons  when  court  had  ad- 

[163] 


164  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

journed;  of  how  once  he  could  get  no  tailor 
to  make  him  a  pair  of  new  breeches,  for  love 
nor  money,  because  he  would  not  ask  him  to 
take  away  the  turn  already  promised  to  a  custo- 
mer to  serve  himself.  As  Justice  Marshall 
would  not  insist  upon  any  special  consideration 
he  had  at  that  time  to  hold  court  in  ragged 
breeches,  which  made  no  more  difference 
than  he  thought  it  did,  namely,  no  difference 
at  all. 

Swain  says,  "I  shall  never  see  nor 
hear  his  like  again,"  and  Judge  Badger  tells 
of  Marshall's  saying  in  his  hearing,  ''The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  to  be  con- 
strued not  loosely,  not  strictly,  but  honestly." 
Here  you  see  Judge  Badger  learning  those 
lessons  of  moderation  and  of  justice  which  he 
put  to  good  use  for  himself  in  his  later  life. 

State  Treasurers  are  usually  retained  for 
many  successive  years;  Secretaries  of  State  for 
long  terms,  also  being  re-elected  and  passing 
their  lives  with  us  and  becoming  permanent 
residents.  The  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  North  Carolina  did  not  do  this  so  invariably, 
while  Governors,  having  short  terms  of  office, 
were  more  often  but  transient  sojourners.  Men 


MORE    BIOGRAPHIES  165 

from  other  states  often  came  to  us.  The 
mention  of  such  solid  and  worthy  qualities  as 
those  of  Duncan  Cameron  and  Kenneth  Ray- 
ner,  might  be  made  as  examples  of  the  great 
gain  which  often  came  to  this  city  and  state 
when  such  men  chose  to  cast  in  their  lot  among 
us. 

It  is  said  that  you  must  have  been  a  part  of 
the  city  of  Charleston  for  three  generations 
before  you  can  claim  to  belong  to  the  place. 
Raleigh  has  been  more  hospitable  from  the 
first,  and  has  added  to  herself  many  a  good 
and  worthy  man  by  this  virtue. 

Certainly  Judge  Gaston  should  be  charac- 
terized in  any  story  of  Wake  County.  His 
memory  deserves  honor  among  us  for  what  he 
was  enabled  to  accomplish  for  Raleigh  as 
well  as  for  his  great  service  to  the  State. 

He  was  born  in  New  Berne,  and  when  living 
in  Raleigh  inhabited  a  little  office  building  in 
the  yard  of  that  house  which  stood,  until  a 
few  years  ago,  at  the  south-west  corner  of 
Salisbury  and  West  Hargett  Streets.  This 
was  originally  the  home  of  Chief  Justice  Tay- 
lor, who  married  Judge  Gaston's  sister.  The 
little  office  in  question  was  on  the  very  corner, 


166  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

and  stood  in  an  old  fashioned  garden,  under  a 
huge  ginkgo  tree,  and  with  vines  and  flowers 
about  its  rear.  Business  houses  have  en- 
croached on  this  old  residence,  and  brick  and 
mortar  entirely  cover  its  site  today. 

Judge  Gaston  has  no  living  relatives  in  the 
State.  His  portraits,  both  painted  and  chisel- 
ed in  marble,  are  to  be  seen  in  the  State 
Library  building.  That  he  was  a  very  great 
lawyer  those  who  know  affirm  enthusiastic- 
ally; that  he  was  a  greater  man,  a  white-souled 
Galahad  of  his  day,  his  contemporaries  agree 
in  testifying,  while  his  letters  bear  it  out. 
"His  Sanctity"  as  one  reverent  admirer  calls 
him.  Judge  Gaston's  pictured  face  is  intel- 
lectual, calm,  regular  in  feature,  but  shows  a 
sad  expression  of  the  mouth,  a  somewhat 
pathetic  air.  Gaston  is  said  to  have  been  a 
bit  too  fine-grained  for  the  rough  game  of 
politics.  He  could  not  hate  any  one  with  his 
whole  heart  for  a  moment,  not  even  one  of 
another  party!  His  high  standards  and  per- 
sonal ideals  joined  with  his  judicial  temper- 
ament, made  some  things  unbearable  to  him 
which  would  scarce  have  provoked  a  shrug 
from  a  less  sensitive  man.  When  the  Feder- 
alist Party  went  to  pieces  he  felt  a  little  home- 


MORE    BIOGRAPHIES  167 

less  politically,  and  registers  his  disappoint- 
ment in  his  advice  to  Governor  Swain  never 
to  be  persuaded  to  re-enter  public  life  after 
he  had  found  useful  retirement  away  from  it. 

Judge  Gaston  was  first  a  Congressman,  re- 
tiring to  practice  law  but  going  to  the  State 
Senate  from  time  to  time.  In  1833  he  was 
appointed  to  the  Supreme  Court  after  the 
death  of  Judge  Leonard  Henderson. 

In  religion  he  was  a  Catholic,  and  used  his 
influence  in  the  Constitutional  Convention  of 
1835  to  do  away  with  the  restraints  on  re- 
ligious liberty  and  amend  the  Constitution  to 
read  "Christian,"  instead  of  'Trotestant," 
when  enumerating  the  qualifications  for  public 
oflice.  His  speeches  on  that  theme  are  said 
to  have  carried  his  hearers  deep  into  the  realm 
of  abstract  justice,  leaving  mere  expediency 
far  behind. 

In  this  connection  let  it  be  stated  that  in  the 
Constitutional  Convention  of  1861  the  last 
religious  limitation  was  removed,  when  dis- 
abilities were  removed  from  the  Jews,  by 
ordinance  introduced  by  William  Johnston 
of  Mecklenburg,  father  to  Mrs.  A.  B.  Andrews, 
whose  memorial  volume  this  is  intended  to 
become. 


MORE    BIOGRAPHIES  169 

Judge  Gaston's  celebrated  eloquence,  like 
that  of  many  another  dead  orator,  is  hard  to 
estimate  at  this  time.  His  speeches  are 
dignified,  sensible,  patterned  with  metaphors 
like  the  figures  on  an  old-fashioned  brocade, 
and  like  it  a  bit  stiff.  Voice  and  intonation 
are  gone.  Great  oratory  is  a  fading  flower. 
Gaston's  signal  service  to  us  and  to  Raleigh 
was  his  determining  influence  in  persuading 
the  Legislature  to  retain  the  Capital  of  the 
State  on  the  old  site.  In  doing  this  he  kept 
our  heritage  for  us  which  might  have  been 
lost  but  for  him.  He  was  the  author  of  the 
words  of  our  State  song,  ''Carolina,  Carolina, 
Heaven's  blessings  attend  her!"  He  was  also 
permitted  in  that  heated  time  to  speak  many 
wise  words  about  slavery,  to  prophesy  its 
downfall,  and  all  this  without  offense,  such 
was  the  universal  respect  for  his  purity  and 
sincerity.  His  taking  off  was  very  sudden. 
His  last  words  were  a  confession  of  faith  in 
God  and  Christianity. 

We  have  mentioned  the  name  of  John  Hay- 
wood, State  Treasurer  for  forty  years,  builder 
of  the  venerable  mansion  which  stands  un- 
changed on  New  Berne  Avenue  and  shelters 
his  descendants.     He  came  to  Raleigh  in  the 


170  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

year  1787,  and  about  that  same  time  three 
brothers  of  his  also  settled  here:  Henry,  father 
of  Senator  William  H.  Haywood,  Sherwood 
Haywood,  and  Stephen  Haywood.  By  prom- 
inence of  position  and  by  services  the  Treas- 
urer was  the  best  known  of  the  four.  His 
portrait  shows  a  handsome,  well  marked  face 
with  dark  eyes  and  a  smiling  expression, 
crowned  with  a  mass  of  prematurely  grey  hair. 
He  was  an  able  man,  but  his  greatest  talent 
was  the  art  of  doing  kind  things  kindly. 
He  was  a  veritable  genius  at  friendship. 

Besides  the  duties  of  his  ofBce,  he  interested 
himself  in  the  infant  University,  and  he  is  said 
to  have  missed  not  more  than  two  trustees' 
meetings  in  his  whole  career,  a  signal  devotion 
when  we  consider  the  long  muddy  miles  that 
had  to  be  wallowed  through  on  horseback  for 
nearly  a  whole  day,  both  going  and  coming,  to 
the  winter  meetings.  It  is  a  persistent  tradi- 
tion that  he  was  the  designer  of  the  seal  and 
motto  of  the  University.  This  has  not  been 
established,  but  it  is  given  for  its  intrinsic  like- 
lihood. 

He  was  responsible  for  calling  to  Raleigh 
that  good  and  useful  man  Dr.  William 
McPheeters  who  was  a  native  of  Virginia,  and 


MORE    BIOGRAPHIES  171 

who  became  both  schoolmaster  and  town 
pastor  and  was  long  a  kind  of  Presbyterian 
Pope  of  Raleigh. 

Each  session  of  the  Legislature,  Mr.  Hay- 
wood invited  each  member  to  eat  at  least  one 
meal  with  him,  and  he  knew  more  men  well 
and  pleasantly  than  did  any  other  man 
in  the  State  unless  it  may  have  been  Gov- 
ernor Swain. 

His  funeral  was  a  state  affair,  with  full  mili- 
tary honors,  and  though  Mr.  Haywood  was 
an  Episcopalian  in  denomination,  his  old 
friend  Dr.  McPheeters  pronounced  the 
funeral  discourse,  closing  with  these  words: 
"Integrity  and  innocence  were  his  guardian 
angels,  and  out  of  the  furnace  of  suspicion 
he  came  unhurt."  Haywood  County,  where 
Waynesville  is  situated,  was  named  for  our 
longest  incumbent  in  the  Treasurer's  office. 

Judge  Badger  was  one  of  the  ablest  men 
ever  produced  in  North  Carolina.  He  was 
born  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  State,  and  was 
a  precocious  genius,  graduating  from  Yale 
University  very  young.  By  the  time  he  was 
thirty  years  old,  he  had  been  a  lawyer,  a  con- 
gressman, and  a  judge,  and  had  left  the  bench 
to  practice  law  in  Raleigh. 


172  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

William  Peace,  the  merchant,  told  of  having 
sold  him  a  suit  of  black  broadcloth  on  credit, 
when  he  was  just  twenty  years  old  and  had, 
at  that  early  age,  obtained  his  law  license. 
It  was  against  his  custom,  he  said,  but  he  was 
so  taken  with  the  gallant  youth,  that  he  risked 
the  money  upon  him  without  security,  and 
was  entirely  justified  in  doing  so. 

Judge  Badger  had  still  a  long  and  a  brilliant 
career  before  him  after  he  settled  in  Raleigh. 
When  the  Whig  party  rose  out  of  the  ruins  of 
the  Federalist,  after  the  disputes  with  Jackson, 
Badger  was  appointed  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
under  Harrison.  When  Tyler,  after  succeed- 
ing to  the  presidential  chair  on  Harrison's 
death,  split  the  party.  Badger  resigned  his 
portfolio  along  with  the  rest  of  the  cabinet. 
Soon  after  this  he  succeeded  William  H.  Hay- 
wood as  Senator,  serving  until  1855.  Always 
a  man  of  great  brilliancy  of  mind  he  took  hold 
of  nothing  by  the  rough  handle.  It  was  a 
criticism  of  him  that  he  was  too  jocular,  that 
he  could  make  a  joke  of  anything  and  laugh  it 
out  of  court.  He  held  well-defined  opinions, 
however,  and  was  a  moderate  man,  a  concilia- 
tor. In  his  opinions  about  slavery  he  follow- 
ed the  ideas  and  the  hopes  of  Henry  Clay. 


MORE    BIOGRAPHIES  173 

In  denomination  he  was  Episcopalian,  and 
was  an  active  opponent  of  Bishop  Ives,  who 
was  touched  with  a  wave  of  that  same  belief 
which  was  troubling  the  Church  of  England  at 
that  time,  and  which  carried  Newman  over 
into  the  Catholic  Church.  That  was  also 
the  final  development  with  Bishop  Ives,  and 
Badger  early  recognized  whither  this  Roman- 
izing tendency  was  drifting,  and  opposed  and 
exposed  the  change  in  the  conventions  of  the 
Episcopal  Church. 

A  staunch  Union  man,  a  moderate  and  a 
conservative.  Judge  Badger  was  nevertheless 
forced  by  the  cruel  turn  of  affairs  in  '61  to 
move  the  secession  ordinance,  as  representing 
Wake  County,  in  May  of  that  year.  He  died 
in  '66.  His  second  wife  was  a  sister  of  Leoni- 
das  Polk,  and  his  third  wife  was  a  Haywood. 

Like  the  Polks  and  like  the  Haywoods,  the 
Battles  have  given  good  men  and  faithful  ones 
to  Raleigh.  Judge  Battle,  father  of  Doctor 
Kemp  Battle,  so  long  President  of  the  Univer- 
sity and  historian  of  it,  father  also  of  our  late 
useful  townsman  Richard  Battle,  Esquire,  lived 
for  most  of  his  active  years  in  Raleigh.  Dun- 
can Cameron  moved  here  in   1829   and  was 


174  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

chairman  of  the  committee  which  had  charge 
of  the  building  of  the  second  Capitol;  he  also 
had  charge  of  the  building  of  Christ  Church, 
thus  leaving  his  mark  on  Raleigh  in  these 
lovely  buildings.  He  was  also  president  of  the 
the  State  Bank  until  succeeded  later  by  his 
son-in-law,    George  Mordecai. 

Leonidas  Polk,  the  second  son  of  Colonel 
William  Polk,  was  born  in  Raleigh.  In  a 
former  chapter  he  has  been  characterized  as 
a  live  boy,  a  student  at  the  old  Academy  un- 
der Dr.  McPheeters.  His  distinctive  ac- 
complishment as  a  youth  was  his  gift  of  song. 
He  could  sing  more  old  songs  better  than  any- 
one else  in  town. 

When  prepared  he  went  early  to  Chapel 
Hill,  remaining  two  years.  A  part  of  that 
time  Governor  Swain  was  his  room-mate. 
In  1822  he  received  his  appointment  to  West 
Point. 

Up  to  this  time  in  his  life  he  was  a  high- 
spirited  and  care-free  but  ambitious  lad,  hav- 
ing perhaps  a  keener  pair  of  eyes  in  his  head 
than  most,  and  indeed  he  was  scarcely  more 
than  twenty  when  he  entered  the  Military 
Academy. 


MORE    BIOGRAPHIES  175 

There  he  encountered  an  atmosphere  as  de- 
void of  any  religious  warmth  as  an  institution 
could  manifest  without  being  absolutely 
atheistic  or  openly  vicious  in  its  influence. 
It  is  not  known  to  the  average  person  what  a 
tendency  to  irreligion  was  shown  in  our 
country  during  the  early  part  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, before  the  great  revivals  began  to  sweep 
their  converts  into  the  churches,  and  before 
a  true  missionary  spirit  became  active.  The 
older  folk  of  that  time  were  of  the  generation 
of  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  most 
educated  minds,  like  Jefferson's  for  example, 
were  full  of  the  ideas  of  Voltaire  or  of  Tom 
Paine,  and  were  often  agnostic  in  refusing  to 
fix  any  religious  belief. 

At  West  Point  at  that  time  it  was  consider- 
ed soft  and  silly  to  notice  the  subject  of  religion 
in  any  way.  Not  a  single  officer  there  was  a 
professor  of  any  religious  faith  at  that  time, 
although  they  had  a  chaplain  for  form's  sake. 
About  that  time  a  new  chaplain  was  appoint- 
ed and  came  to  serve  them.  He  records  how 
chilling  he  found  the  apathy  and  the  veiled 
scorn  he  met,  but  he  was  the  kind  of  man 
whose  conviction  led  him  to  strive  to  accom- 
plish  something   under   any   conditions.     He 


v^vl 


MORE    BIOGRAPHIES  177 

was  able  to  influence  Leonidas  Polk,  and  made 
in  him  his  first  convert.  The  young  man  was 
deeply  and  genuinely  touched  and  changed. 
Alter  graduating  at  West  Point,  he  told  his 
father  of  his  new  outlook  and  of  his  recently 
taken  decision  to  leave  the  army  and  study  for 
the  Church.  While  Colonel  Polk's  plans  for 
his  boy  were  cruelly  frustrated,  still  there  was 
no  open  breach  between  them,  and  the  father 
became  more  reconciled  as  time  passed. 
After  studying  at  the  seminary  in  Alexander, 
Virginia,  Leonidas  was  ordained  deacon  in 
1831. 

Before  that  time  he  had  married  Miss 
Devereux,  daughter  of  John  Devereux  of 
Raleigh,  and  when  a  few  years  later  he  was 
consecrated  Missionary  Bishop  of  the  South- 
west, he  moved  to  Tennessee  to  the  generous 
tract  his  father  allotted  him  of  a  thousand 
acres  of  good  blue  grass. 

The  diocese  of  the  new  bishop  was  enormous 
consisting  of  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana, 
Arkansas,  Indian  Territory  of  Oklahoma,  and 
the  great  state  of  Texas.  The  whole  of  this 
wide  extent  of  country  was  still  sparsely  set- 
tled, and  its  isolated  inhabitants  had  very 
little  religious  instruction  and  did  not  wish 


178  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

for  any.  In  emigrating,  they  had  escaped  re- 
straint, and  unlike  the  more  northern  emi- 
grants they  were  mostly  country  people  and 
did  not  come  from  communities  well  organized 
religiously.  Their  old  homes  had  often  been 
as  isolated  to  all  intents  and  purposes  as  the 
new  ones  so  far  on  the  frontier. 

This  made  the  problem  of  the  missionary, 
and  on  one  of  his  long  journeys  a  Texan  told 
Bishop  Polk  that  he  was  wasting  his  time. 
''Go  home;  go  home,  young  man,"  said  this 
man  earnestly,  "we  are  not  worth  saving!" 

An  anecdote  told  of  one  of  these  border 
ruffians  of  this  decade  will  illustrate  the  lawless 
undisciplined  spirit  of  the  South-west  with 
which  Bishop  Polk  had  to  deal  in  the  begin- 
ning of  his  ministry.  It  was  a  man  who  had 
been  jailed  for  manslaughter  and  was  most 
indignant,  considering  it  an  outrage,  and  say- 
ing, "Now-a-days  you  can't  put  an  inch  or  so 
of  knife  into  a  fellow,  or  lam  him  over  the 
head  with  a  stick  of  wood,  but  every  little 
lackey  must  poke  his  nose  in,  and  law,  law, 
law  is  the  word.  Then  after  the  witnesses 
swear  to  their  pack  o'lies,  and  the  lawyers  get 
their  jaw  in,  that  old  cuss  that  sets  up  there 


MORE    BIOGRAPHIES  179 

high  and  grinds  out  the  law  to  'em,  he  must 
have  his  how-de-do!  I  tell  you  T  won't  stay 
in  no  such  a  country.  I  mean  to  go  to  Texas, 
where  a  man  can  have  some  peace  and  not  be 
interfered  with  in  his  private  concerns!" 

This  was  the  spirit  that  Bishop  Polk  met 
over  and  over  again  in  his  long  journeys  all 
over  this  great  district.  His  life  was  threat- 
ened with  violence  in  more  than  one  frontier 
place,  but  he  was  a  man  who  could  not  be 
daunted;  and  beside  this  he  well  understood 
the  tempers  and  manners  of  his  southern  fel- 
low-countrymen. He  did  the  work  of  an 
evangelist  with  much  success.  Later  he  help- 
ed to  initiate  and  organize  the  University  of 
the  South  at  Sewanee,  Tennessee. 

The  war  came  on  in  '61,  and  Jefferson 
Davis,  President  of  the  Confederacy,  being  in 
need  of  all  the  trained  soldiers  possible  to 
lead  and  train  his  armies,  asked  his  advisers 
if  they  supposed  Bishop  Polk  would  allow 
himself  to  be  appointed  Major-General.  This 
appointment  was  offered  to  him,  without  his 
having  any  surmise  of  it  beforehand.  After 
some  consideration.  Bishop  Polk  accepted  the 
commission,  and  served  his  country  and  chos- 
en cause  as  Major,  afterwards  Brigadier-Gen- 


180  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

eral  all  through  the  war.  Quite  late  In  the 
struggle  he  was  killed  during  the  fighting 
round  Atlanta.  He  was  burled  in  Augusta, 
Georgia. 

His  men  called  him  Bishop  more  often  than 
they  called  him  General,  and  he  was  much 
loved.  He  kept  his  sacred  calling  well  to  the 
fore,  while  doing  the  difficult  duty  of  a  soldier 
and  officer  in  command. 

Such  a  sincere  picturesque  figure  as  he 
makes  is  a  worthy  subject  for  study  and  inter- 
est. We  cannot  claim  many  such  distin- 
guished and  unusual  persons. 

Many  soldiers  went  out  from  Raleigh  and  of 
these  many  distinguished  themselves.  Their 
histories  are  part  of  that  great  book  of  golden 
deeds  which  should  be  read  as  long  as  books 
are  made.  But  it  would  be  too  long  to  try  to 
tell  of  them  all;  to  tell  of  those  who  came 
home  alive  to  work  out  a  restoration  of  the 
piteous  destruction  of  war,  and  of  those  who 
were  mercifully  spared  the  further  sacrifice 
except  the  one  of  their  lives  given  in  a  moment 
of  time,  rather  than  spent  painfully  day  by 
day.  These  things  will  be  better  told  by 
others.  There  is  not  room  here  for  that  long 
roll  of  heroic  names. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
Improvements  and  Progress 

OMETIMES  improvement  Is  de- 
finitely started  by  the  stimula- 
tion of  a  great  loss.  The  Raleigh 
that  we  know  today  only  began 
to  come  into  existence  after  the 

old  town  had  been  destroyed  by  a  series  of 

fires. 

Of  these  the  most  serious  and  the  most 
spectacular  was  the  burning  of  the  old  State 
House  in  1831.  From  Governor  Swain's  ac- 
count, given  as  an  eye-witness,  we  can  recall  the 
despair  and  dismay  of  this  loss. 

The  fire  occurred  in  broad  daylight,  the 
middle  of  a  summer  day,  June  21st,  1831, 
and  caught  from  a  solder  pot  which  a  careless 
workman  took  into  the  loft  where  he  was  re- 
pairing something  about  the  roof,  and  there 
left  it,  while  he  went  to  dinner.  During  his 
absence  the  fire  caught  and  spread  unnoticed. 

Once  before,  in  1799,  there  had  been  an 
alarm  about  fire,  a  warning  given  by  Andrew 
Jackson,  conveyed  to  his  old  friend  and  for- 

[i8i] 


182  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

mer  neighbor  Colonel  Polk,  to  the  effect  that 
it  was  conspired  to  destroy  the  State  House  in 
that  way.  It  seems  that  the  Secretary  of 
State,  Glasgow,  holding  his  office  as  a  respect- 
ed leader  and  a  Revolutionary  officer  of  re- 
pute, had  somehow  fallen  into  bad  ways,  and 
was  issuing  fraudulent  land  warrants.  The 
deception  being  found  out,  he  was  prosecuted, 
and  to  prevent  conviction  he  had  designed  to 
burn  the  State  House,  and  with  it  all  evidences 
of  his  crime.  This  plot  Jackson  discovered, 
and  the  State  House  and  its  records  were 
saved,  while  Glasgow  fled  from  justice. 

This  time,  however,  the  fire  was  well  under 
way  before  anyone  knew  about  it,  and  when 
the  flames  appeared  they  were  at  the  top  of 
the  building,  and  there  was  not  even  a  ladder 
at  hand  long  enough  to  reach  the  trouble. 
And  so  that  bright  June  day,  the  State  House 
burned  leisurely,  the  black  smoke  rolled  up 
into  the  blue  sky  while  the  owls  and  bats  and 
flying  squirrels  scurried  out  of  the  burning 
dome  in  panic,  and  the  terrified  people  of 
Raleigh  ran  helplessly  to  and  fro  across  the 
Capitol  Square.  Mr  Hill,  Secretary  of  State, 
had  ample  time  to  save  the  State  papers.     A 


IMPROVEMENTS    AND    PROGRESS  183 

few  that  were  lost  at  that  time  were  after- 
wards restored  by  bequest  of  Waightstlll 
Avery,  from  his  private  collections. 

Miss  Betsy  Geddy,  that  spirited  and  gritty 
maiden  lady,  rallied  all  comers  to  try  and 
move  the  Canova  statue  of  Washington 
from  beneath  the  burning  roof.  The  citizens 
took  hold,  under  her  leadership  and  encour- 
agement, and  tried  hard,  but  the  marble  was 
very  heavy,  and  there  were  not  hands  enough 
to  lift  or  to  move  it.  There  remained  noth- 
ing to  do  but  to  watch  it  burn.  By  and  by 
the  fire  had  surrounded  it,  and  it  could  be 
seen  heated  red-hot,  glowing  like  a  figure  in  a 
fiery  furnace.  So  it  shone  for  a  time  with 
unearthly  beauty,  and  suddenly  the  roof  fell 
in  upon  it  and  it  broke  and  crumbled  in  utter 
and  final  ruin.  A  silence  fell  on  the  watching 
throng,  and  some  little  child's  voice  was  heard 
speaking  the  sorrow  of  all:  'Toor  State  House, 
poor  statue,  Fm  so  sorry!" 

After  the  smoking  ruins  in  the  Capitol 
Square  had  been  quenched  in  a  few  summer 
rains,  the  question  was  asked  and  the  dis- 
cussion began  whether  the  edifice  should  or 
should  not  be  rebuilt  in  the  same  spot  or  an- 
other Capital  city  selected. 


184  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

At  the  next  General  Assembly  the  contro- 
versy became  hot.  Fayetteville,  always  sore 
because  she  had  been  passed  by  that  first 
time,  when  the  new  Capital  was  located  in 
a  wilderness,  came  to  the  front  again  to  put 
forth  an  earnest  efforttohave  her  way  this  time. 
She  felt  that  the  breeze  that  fanned  the 
flame  had  been  blowing  good  to  her  door. 

A  proposed  town  site  of  Haywood  to  be 
built  at  the  junction  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  the 
Deep  Rivers  was  spoken  of  also;  and  much  was 
said  in  its  favor  because  the  idea  was  that 
water  was  needed  for  transportation,  and  such 
a  site  would  be  favorable  for  a  Capital  city 
on  that  account.  This  last  is  a  persistent 
tradition,  and  not  a  matter  of  written  record. 

Haywood  in  the  House,  Judge  Henry  Sea- 
well  in  the  Senate,  made  the  motion  to  rebuild 
the  Capitol  on  the  former  site  in  the  City  of 
Raleigh,  and  the  great  influence  and  eloquence 
of  Judge  Gaston  were  needed  at  this  moment- 
ous session  of  the  Assembly  so  to  sway  the 
wavering  minds  of  the  Legislators  that  they 
might  vote  for  the  retention  of  the  seat  of 
government  in  Wake  County.  The  bill  to 
rebuild  the  Capitol  at  Raleigh  and  on  its  old 


IMPROVEMENTS    AND    PROGRESS  185 

site  was  finally  passed  by  a  safe  majority, 
and  carried  the  appropriation  of  fifty  thousand 
dollars.  The  Representatives,  thinking  of 
the  twenty  thousand  which  sufficed  to  build 
the  first  State  House,  considered  this  a  gener- 
ous allowance.  They  ordered  the  new  build- 
ing to  be  as  nearly  fire-proof  as  possible,  to 
be  built  of  granite  and  to  have  stone  floors  as 
well  as  walls. 

The  committee  to  have  charge  of  the  build- 
ing were  William  Boylan,  Duncan  Cameron, 
William  S.  M'Hoon  (State  Treasurer),  Henry 
Seawell,  and  Romulus  M.  Saunders.  This 
first  committee  soon  resigned  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  a  second  entire  body  composed  of 
S.  F.  Patterson,  Beverly  Daniel,  Charles  Man- 
ly, Alfred  Jones  of  White  Plains,  and  Charles 
L.  Hinton.  Mr.  Nichols  was  State  architect 
and  had  had  some  experience  with  the  stone 
which  could  be  quarried  here  at  home.  A 
builder  from  the  North  was  associated  with 
him  for  a  little  time,  but  was  later  dismissed. 

The  committee  were  men  of  boldness,  for 
they  calmly  used  the  whole  of  the  first  appro- 
ation  to  build  the  foundation  for  the  new 
Capitol  and  then  asked  for  more.     Of  course 


Canova's  conception  of  George  Washington  as  pictured 

IN   A   RARE   SKETCH   AFTER  THE    FAMOUS   STATUE.       (fROM 
MRS.    JULIA   JOHNSTON    ANDREWs'    SKETCH) 


IMPROVEMENTS    AND    PROGRESS  187 

this  was  exactly  what  they  should  have  done, 
but  when  we  reflect  how  unpopular  this  action 
would  appear  to  the  habitual  parsimony  of 
that  day's  public  opinion,  and  how  well  the 
Legislature  understood  that  unavoidable  tax- 
ation was  all  that  would  be  tolerated,  we  may 
understand  that  in  doing  this  they  were  tempt- 
ing criticism  and  doing  it  consciously. 

On  July  4th,  1833,  the  corner  stone  of  the 
Capitol  was  laid  with  Masonic  rites,  and  an 
account  of  the  procession  and  of  the  articles 
placed  in  the  corner  stone  may  be  read  in  the 
papers  of  that  date. 

Governor  Swain  was  in  office  at  that 
time,  a;id  on  that  same  day  was  held  in  the 
brick  hotel,  formerly  the  State  Museum,  a 
meeting  of  representative  citizens  of  North 
Carolina  to  debate  on  ways  and  means  for 
building  a  railroad;  or  two  lines,  one  east  and 
west  and  one  north  and  south,  connecting 
with  the  Portsmouth  Railroad,  and  extending 
to  some  convenient  point  on  the  South  Caro- 
lina line.  Governor  Swain  presided  over  the 
meeting,  the  first  of  its  kind  ever  held  in 
North  Carolina,  and  their  decision  was  to 
petition  the  Legislature  to  assist  the  enter- 
prise by  pledging  the  faith  of  the  State.     A 


188  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

subsequent,  more  widely  representative  con- 
vention suggested  the  proportion  of  three- 
fifths  subscribed  by  stockholders,  and  two- 
fifths  loaned  or  invested  by  the  State. 

To  return  to  the  new  Capitol,  begun  as 
above,  in  1833,  and  built  for  the  sum  as  cal- 
culated after  its  completion,  of  2530,684,  re- 
quiring seven  years  to  finish.  It  is,  and  has 
been,  as  fine  a  building  of  its  kind  as  is  to 
be  found  in  the  United  States,  and  it 
it  has  been  a  lovely  and  satisfying  sight  to 
several  generations  of  North  Carolina  folk. 
The  stone  was  all  taken  from  that  same  quarry 
at  the  eastern  side  of  town  which  had  been 
opened  for  the  foundation  of  the  first  State 
House. 

It  is  a  granite,  rather  brittle,  and  veined 
with  lines  of  brown  which  make  its  coloring 
warm  instead  of  too  grey.  It  is  somewhat 
translucent,  having  the  quality,  more  than  any 
other  stone  in  the  State,  of  reflecting  a  differ- 
ent color  under  every  changing  sky  which 
looks  down  upon  it.  When  snow  is  on  the 
ground,  in  the  glow  of  a  winter  sunset,  it  has 
a  lovely  bluish  cast.  In  spring,  when  the 
baby  leaves  on  the  trees  around  it  show  pale 
green,   it  looks  pinkish   and   pale  grey,   and 


IMPROVEMENTS    AND    PROGRESS  189 

ethereal  like  a  fairy  palace.  This  wonderful 
stone  gave  trouble  to  the  builders,  however, 
and  sometimes  cracked  unexpectedly.  One  of 
the  great  pillars  of  the  western  facade,  has  a 
broken  corner  in  its  pedestal,  where  a  piece 
of  the  slab  faulted  when  the  weight  grew  heavy 
upon  it,  and  which  was  never  corrected  be- 
cause of  the  great  expense  involved  of  renew- 
ing the  whole  pillar. 

Directing  the  building  was  William  Nichols. 
The  architect,  Ithiel  Towneof  New  York  City, 
came  to  see  the  foundation  laid  out  and  begun. 
He  left  as  an  architect  and  draughtsman  to 
to  represent  him,  David  Paton,  a  Scotchman, 
who  did  not  remain  long  in  North  Carolina 
after  he  had  completed  his  work.  During  his 
stay,  however,  he  married  a  North  Carolina 
lady,  and  his  wife  died  and  left  him  with  one 
baby  girl.  This  child  was  returned  to  the 
care  of  her  Southern  grandmother,  and  mar- 
ried here.  Through  her  Mr.  Paton  has  descen- 
dants in  this  State. 

Thomas  Bragg,  father  of  Governor  Bragg, 
was  also  In  charge  of  part  of  the  work.  It 
was  necessary  also  to  Import  skilled  stone- 
cutters from  England  and  Scotland,  for  there 


190  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

were  none  In  North  Carolina,  and  accordingly 
the  ancestor  of  the  Stronach  family  was  one  of 
these  skilled  craftsmen,  William  Murdoch  of 
Salisbury  was  another,  also  aMr.  Puttick,  and 
others  who  cast  in  their  lot  here  afterward 
and  became  permanent  citizens. 

On  first  coming  to  this  climate  these  foreign 
folk  found  the  heat  and  humidity  hard  to  bear 
and  several  died  of  the  fevers  which  were  con- 
sidered quite  Inevitable  in  those  days.  They 
lie  buried  in  the  old  City  Cemetery.  The  most 
of  the  Scotch  masons  adapted  themselves  as 
that  sturdy  race  does  in  every  part  of  the 
world,  and  worked  busily  at  the  rising  wall 
of  the  Capitol  until  it  stood  complete. 

There  is  no  use  giving  dimensions  and  telling 
of  the  source  of  the  architectural  details  of 
this  building,  speculating  as  to  the  Greek 
or  Roman  temple  suggested  by  this  cornice, 
or  the  classical  building  imitated  in  that  fa- 
cade, for  we  may  see  the  lovely  pile  of  stone 
any  day,  those  of  us  who  live  in  this  city  and 
country.  It  has  become  for  us  like  the  sunshine 
and  the  blue  sky,  too  much  a  part  of  our 
daily  vision  for  us  to  realize  the  great  Intrin- 
sic beauty  it  represents. 


IMPROVEMENTS  AND  PROGRESS      191 

It  took  several  sets  of  commissioners  to 
finally  complete  the  building  of  the  Capitol, 
and  they  frequently  resigned,  and  were  often 
replaced  during  the  interval;  for  it  is  hinted 
that  the  great  amount  of  money  which  had  to 
be  expended  more  than  the  first  appropriation 
caused  a  good  deal  of  criticism.  Also  not  being 
skilled  architects  they  must  stand  by  what  was 
told  them  by  their  contractors;  and  many 
difiiculties  quite  unexpected  had  to  be  met 
one  by  one  in  the  progress  of  the  edifice. 
Besides  this,  every  one  who  passed  by  felt 
privileged  to  criticise  and  spend  an  opinion, 
until  those  in  charge  could  scarcely  maintain 
their  calmness.  This  sort  of  free  advice  is 
one  of  the  rights  of  a  democracy.  Kings' 
houses  are  not  so  pitilessly  criticised. 

The  last  committee,  those  who  persisted, 
were  but  three— William  McPheeters,  John 
Beckwith,  and  Weston  Gales,  and  it  is  these 
whose  final  accounting  to  the  General  Assem- 
bly is  published  in  the  newspapers  of  the  time. 

The  stone  to  build  the  Capitol  was  hauled 
to  the  spot  by  means  of  a  little  street  rail- 
road or  tramway,  called  the  ''Experimental 
Railroad."     This  was  constructed  across  from 


192  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

the  quarry  to  the  eastern  end  of  New  Berne 
Avenue,  and  west  along  that  street  to  the 
Capitol  Square,  and  the  small  cars  drawn  by 
mules  easily  handled  the  blocks  of  stone. 
This  plan,  which  seems  quite  simple  and  ob- 
vious, was  considered  a  wonder  and  a  great 
innovation  at  that  time.  The  railroad  Idea 
was  quite  new  and  as  thrilling  to  the  popular 
imagination  as  the  airplane  Is  now  In  1922. 
The  idea  of  building  and  operating  this  little 
railroad  was  due  to  Mrs.  Sarah  Hawkins  Polk, 
wife  of  Colonel  William  Polk,  and  she  put 
her  savings  into  It,  realizing  three  hundred 
per  cent. 

Among  the  letters  of  her  son,  Leonidas,  then 
a  cadet  at  West  Point,  to  his  parents,  was  one 
which  contributed  the  Idea.  He  went  to 
Boston  on  a  summer  leave  of  absence,  and 
saw  there  In  operation  that  sort  of  a  tramway 
bringing  in  the  stone  being  then  used  to  build 
Bunker  Hill  Monument.  He  took  the  trouble 
to  write  his  parents  the  whole  plan  in  detail, 
making  a  careful  little  sketch  to  show  the 
proper  flange  the  car  wheels  should  have  In 
order  to  run  safely  on  the  wooden  rails. 
This   experimental   railroad   was   such  a  sue- 


IMPROVEMENTS    AND    PROGRESS  193 

cess  that  a  passenger  car  was  put  on,  drawn 
by  a  safe  horse,  and  people  came  from  far  and 
near  to  enjoy  a  new  sensation,  so  that  at  times 
the  hauling  of  stone  was  somewhat  Impeded. 
Street  cars  were  thus  a  very  early  develop- 
ment In  Raleigh,  due  to  the  seizing  of  a  new 
Idea  by  a  woman. 

Indeed,  the  good  ladles  of  Raleigh  seem  to 
have  been  more  ''experimental"  than  their 
lords  on  several  occasions,  although  we  are  of- 
ten told  that  women  are  the  conservative  sex. 
We  have  told  of  Miss  Betsy  Geddy's  spirited 
effort  to  save  the  finest  thing  In  the  State,  the 
Canova  statue  of  George  Washington,  at  the 
time  the  old  State  House  burned.  This  story 
is  like  that  of  the  alabaster  box  of  precious 
ointment,  always  to  be  told  In  her  praise. 
One  of  the  daughters  of  Mr.  Casso,  the  inn- 
keeper or  hotel  man,  had  married  the  mer- 
chant, John  Stewart.  She  was  one  of  those 
strong-willed  and  practical  sisters  who  make 
the  finest  ancestors  In  the  world,  because  they 
have  the  common  sense  and  decision  to  meet 
a  crisis. 

She  saved  her  home,  although  it  was  given 
up  to  be  destroyed  in  the  path  of  that  great 


c   o 

^& 

^    . 

2     H 


o  w 
u  ft. 
o     . 


IMPROVEMENTS    AND    PROGRESS  195 

fire  that  swept  off  the  whole  east  side  of 
Fayetteville  Street.  This  happened  shortly 
after  the  State  House  was  burned  and  shows 
how  nearly  Raleigh  was  totally  annihilated 
by  recurring  conflagrations.  They  brought 
gunpowder,  and  told  Mrs.  Stewart  that  her 
house  must  be  blown  up  to  arrest  the  fire, 
which  was  come  almost  to  that  place.  She 
mounted  her  roof  and  defied  them  to  blow 
her  up  with  the  doomed  house,  and  when  she 
had  thus  gained  her  point  she  proceeded  to 
save  her  house,  and  keep  a  roof  over  her  head, 
by  hard  work  and  wet  bed-quilts.  Another 
time  she  saved  somebody's  store  from  being 
a  total  loss  by  quenching  the  burning  roof  with 
twelve  barrels  of  vinegar,  after  the  wells  were 
all  drawn  dry.  At  the  festival  in  honor  of 
the  coming  of  the  railroad  into  Raleigh,  she 
served  the  banquet  to  seven  hundred  people 
who  sat  down  simultaneously. 

Good  fire  protection  was  scarcely  to  be  ex- 
pected in  Raleigh,  and  the  business  block  was 
crowded  together  more  than  was  prudent 
when  the  town  was  so  small.  A  tiny  fire 
engine  was  bought  as  early  as  1802,  and 
another  in  1810,  although  they  seem  not  to 
have  done  much  good. 


196  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Also  there  were  at  one  time  primitive  water- 
works, water  being  pumped  up  from  Walnut 
Creek  to  a  tank  and  allowed  to  run  down 
Fayetteville  Street  by  gravity.  The  wooden 
pipes  soon  filled  up  with  sediment,  for  the 
water  was  uniiltered  and  full  of  the  red  mud 
which  is  seldom  absent  from  running  streams  in 
this  section.  Drought  then  reigned  as  be- 
fore, except  as  slaked  by  well-water. 

Hunter's  Pond  was  the  cause  of  much  of  the 
fever  and  chills  that  made  the  city  sickly,  and 
only  after  the  fever  epidemics  of  the  thirties 
was  this  pond  bought  by  the  city  and  drained. 

Raleigh  by  this  time  was  becoming  aware  of 
her  backwardness.  Railroading  was  the  topic 
and  the  sensation.  Internal  improvement 
was  in  the  air.  After  so  long  without  taking 
serious  interest  in  the  subject,  people  had  sud- 
denly become  impatient  of  the  endless  miles 
which  separated  them  from  their  next  town 
neighbors.  Every  newspaper  told  of  the  rise 
of  real  estate  values,  the  increase  in  the 
promptness  of  the  mails,  and  the  other  joys  of 
those  sections  where  railroads  had  already  be- 
gun to  be  built  and  operated.  ''Let  us  cease 
to  doubt,  to  hesitate  and  slumber,  let  us  tear 
away  the  poppy  from  our  brows,  let  us   no 


IMPROVEMENTS    AND    PROGRESS  197 

longer  be  the  Rip  Van  Winkle  among  com- 
monwealths," thus  runs  the  editorial  comment 
upon  the  following  bit  of  news  item,  dated 
February  Sth,  1833,  Petersburg,  Virginia. 

"It  is  impossible  to  convey  to  those  who 
have  not  witnessed  a  similar  scene,  an  ade- 
quate conception  of  the  pride  and  pleasure 
that  beamed  from  every  countenance  when 
the  Engine  was  first  seen  descending  the  plain, 
wending  her  way  with  sylph-like  beauty  into 
the  bosom  of  the  town,  and,  like  a  conqueror 
of  old,  bearing  upon  her  bosom  the  evidence 
of  the  victory  of  art  over  the  obstructions  of 
nature." 

Conventions  were  held,  stock  books  were 
opened  and  the  successive  Legislatures  mem- 
orialized, while,  after  a  year  or  two  of  such 
excitement  many  railroads  had  been  laid  out  on 
paper  and  nowhere  else,  and  the  newspapers 
thought  things  were  wofully  slow  moving. 
Yet  when  we  think  of  the  novelty  of  the  un- 
dertaking, we  cannot  say  that  there  was  much 
delay. 

The  beginning  of  railroad  agitation  and  the 
laying  of  the  corner  stone  of  the  new  Capitol 
were  accomplished  the  same  day,  and  the  rail- 


198  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

road,  the  Raleigh  and  Gaston,  was  near 
enough  to  completion  to  be  celebrated  at  the 
same  time  as  the  finishing  of  the  Capitol 
building. 

The  same  year  1840,  which  saw  the  new 
Capitol  complete  from  foundation  to 
dome,  also  saw  the  first  train  roll  into  Raleigh 
from  Gaston,  near  Weldon,  and  the  feelings  so 
well  expressed  in  Petersburg,  of  victory  over 
space  and  time,  enlivened  the  hearts  of  this 
city,  rejuvenated  as  it  was  by  these  two  great 
tasks    accomplished. 

The  Three  Days  of  Raleigh  were  June  tenth, 
eleventh,  and  twelfth,  1840,  and  the  town  gave 
itself  up  to  jollification,  speechification,  il- 
lumination and  barbecue.  Guests  from  Rich- 
mond and  from  Petersburg,  from  Wilmington 
and  from  other  North  Carolina  towns,  were 
present.  Wilmington  had  also  seen  her  first 
train  pull  into  the  station  that  same  spring, 
but  the  western  towns  were  still  served  by 
stage-coaches. 

The  banquet  was  served  in  the  new  freight 
depot,  empty  and  spacious,  and  capable  of 
holding  the  seven  hundred  guests.  A  first 
shipment  of  cotton  for  export  had  been  brought 
into  it  just  the  April  previous. 


IMPROVEMENTS    AND    PROGRESS  199 

There  were  five  tables  ninety  feet  long,  and 
the  banqueters  toasted  in  real,  sure-enough 
liquor,  The  Railroad,  The  Capitol,  Judge  Gas- 
ton, "The  Ladies"  several  times,  and  Mrs. 
Sarah  Polk  especially,  and  separately,  al- 
though they  called  her  a  "Distinguished  Fe- 
male." To  read  of  the  doings,  one  would  fear 
that  the  banqueters  might  need  help  when 
time  came  to  go  home  after  all  was  over. 

That  night  and  the  following  there  were 
strings  of  colored  lanterns  from  tree  to  tree 
in  the  Capitol  Square,  and  transparencies,  one 
showing  the  new  Capitol,  one  the  new  engine, 
"The  Tornado,"  and  the  third,  a  "lovely 
scene  of  nature"  entitled  "Our  Country." 
There  were  two  balls  on  successive  nights  in 
the  Senate  Chamber,  whose  great  chandelier 
held  a  hundred  wax  candles;  and  concerts  in 
the  Commons  Hall  for  those  who  did  not 
dance. 

During  the  day  there  were  trips  a  few  miles 
out  on  the  railroad,  and  return,  although  the 
rails,  or  iron  strips  on  which  the  wheels  should 
run  were  not  yet  nailed  to  the  wooden  string- 
ers. ''The  Tornado,"  as  the  first  engine  was 
nam.ed,hadbut  a  single  driving  wheel  on  each 


IMPROVEAIENTS    AND    PROGRESS  201 

side,  and  no  cab.  It  was  made  In  Richmond 
and  was  similar  in  pattern  to  a  good  many 
engines  turned  out  about  that  time.  The  cars 
on  these  first  roads  were  Hke  a  string  of  stages 
at  first,  but  in  South  Carolina  they  had  evolved 
a  box-like  passenger  car,  like  a  low-built  street 
car.  Hence  we  suppose  the  first  North  Caro- 
lina passenger  cars  might  have  been  similar  to 
those  used  near  Charleston.  All  engines  had 
proper  names  for  the  first  twenty-five  years 
of  railroad  experience.  An  item  in  a  Raleigh 
paper  about  this  time  tells  of  a  great  railroad 
spectacle  in  Baltimore,  when  the  engine  came 
in  on  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  drawing  seven 
coaches  full  of  people  at  once,  thirty  persons 
to  the  coach. 

The  strips  of  iron  which  shod  the  wooden 
rails  would  sometimics  become  loosened,  catch 
against  a  car  wheel,  and  turn  upwards  pierc- 
ing the  car,  so  that  by  this  means  the  train 
would  be  stopped.  They  were  called  snake 
heads.  No  one  is  mentioned  as  having  been 
impaled  by  this  strip  of  iron,  although  there 
must  have  been  danger  of  this  accident. 

The  fuel  burned  on  our  first  railroads,  and 
many  years  thereafter,  was  wood.     The  pro- 


202  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

gress  of  the  trains  was  uncertain.  Sometimes 
the  engine  would  lurch  off  the  track,  and  go 
plowing  through  the  bank  a  few  feet,  but  it 
was  not  a  wrecking  train  and  a  great  derrick 
that  replaced  the  derailed  cars,  but  simply  a 
couple  of  dozen  men  gathered  from  nearby 
farms,  and  a  mule  or  two,  for  the  little  engine 
was  not  too  heavy  to  be  coaxed  back  upon 
the  track  by  their  combined  efforts. 

Railroad  nomenclature  was  not  settled  at 
this  time.  They  called  a  collision  (and  these 
happened  soon)  a  concussion.  A  train  was 
called  a  brigade  of  cars. 

The  Raleigh  and  Gaston  was  eighty-six 
miles  long,  and  this  distance  and  return  was 
made  in  twelve  hours,  which  was  considered 
a  giddy  pace.  The  time  table  given  occurs 
several  years  later,  and  says  "Leave  Raleigh  at 
7:00  a.  m..  Reach  Weldon  at  12  m." 

The  president  of  the  new  road  was  George 
W.  Mordecai.  The  State  aided  in  financing 
the  project,  although  a  little  reluctantly,  and 
on  rather  severe  terms.  We  must  notice  that 
fares  on  the  different  stage  lines  were  reduced 
immediately,  and  stages  and  harness  began 
to  be   advertised   for  sale.     That   the   much 


IMPROVEMENTS    AND    PROGRESS  203 

needed  impulse  to  prosperity  was  given,  farm 
property  increased  in  value  along  the  new  line, 
and  the  North  Carolina  Railroad  was  soon 
built,  shows  that  upon  the  coming  of  the  much 
needed  improvement  trade  was  steadily  pro- 
gressing. For  a  long  time  the  population  of 
North  Carolina  had  been  almost  stationary, 
and  from  1830  to  1840  only  fourteen  thousand 
five  hundred  increase  was  noted  over  the 
whole  State.  Now  the  "breath  of  progress 
and  the  breeze  of  prosperity  was  to  blow  away 
all  stagnation  and  sloth." 


CHAPTER  IX 
The  Middle   Years 

N  the  decades  of  the  forties  and 
the  fifties  progress  and  develop- 
ment of  Wake  County  went  stead- 
ily forward,  even  as  the  prosper- 
ity of  North  Carolina  increased. 
The  young  men  of  the  Commonwealth  did  not 
run  away  in  such  numbers  to  Texas  and  Mis- 
souri as  they  had  formerly  done  to  the  near 
South  and  West. 

The  City  of  Raleigh,  established  beyond  all 
peradventure  as  Capital  of  the  State  for  the 
future,  found  herself  by  central  position,  and 
by  heritage,  confirmed  in  the  social  leadership 
of  the  State.  Her  individual  social  atmos- 
phere began  to  make  itself  felt.  Then,  as  at 
present,  there  existed  a  certain  indifference  to 
money  as  an  asset  socially,  a  desire  to  value 
her  new-comers  for  what  they  could  prove 
themselves  to  be,  provided  that  first  of  all  they 
be  agreeable  people.  This  is  the  quality  of  a 
society  conservative,  and  yet  liberal;  reserved, 
and  yet  tending  to  kindliness  and  toleration. 
Such  a  flavor  of  life,  fine  and  subtile,  does  not 

f204l 


THE    MIDDLE    YEARS  205 

develop  save  in  a  time  of  quiet  improvement, 
and  hopefulness. 

In  the  county  as  a  whole,  the  change  to  more 
prosperous  times  became  evident.  There  was 
more  to  employ  the  young  men  of  a  family  and 
to  make  their  stay  at  home  worth  while  to 
them. 

Probably  most  of  these  plantation  homes, 
with  their  wide  double  piazzas  and  clustering 
groves  of  trees,  these  patriarchal  mansions, 
only  a  few  of  which  survive  conflagration  and 
neglect,  were  built  about  1840. 

Some  were  built  later,  a  few  much  earher, 
but  none  could  have  been  made  after  the  war. 
The  woodwork  and  the  cornices  of  these 
houses  were  often  of  a  high  finish,  and  the 
joinery  surprises  those  who  think  that  slaves 
could  attain  no  fine  workmanship.  Those 
were  the  houses  of  which  the  old  folk  would 
fondly  remark,  '1  tell  you  that  was  a  fine  old 
house  in  its  day."  These  homes  seem  quite 
simple  and  plain,  but  are  well  remembered  for 
what  they  represented  to  the  life  of  those 
times.  They  are  roomy,  they  have  a  look 
about  them  of  generosity  on  the  part  of  their 
builders,  of  the  spirit  of  free  hospitality  un- 


206  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

trammeled  by  the  drudgery  which  lack  of  ser- 
vants must  bring.  They  were  largely  placed 
in  a  country  not  too  thickly  settled,  and  pro- 
vided with  the  abundance  of  food  and  drink 
which  was  unstinted  at  that  era  of  our  history. 
They  gave  a  cheerful  welcome  and  were  abodes 
of  gracious  leisure.  These  recollections  com- 
bine to  fill  up  the  kindly  memories  of  these  old 
houses.  Indeed  the  time  from  the  first  of  the 
forties  through  the  fifties  must  have  been  a 
golden  age  to  be  alive  in,  the  joyous  youth  of 
our  country. 

Improvements  in  living  conditions  came  in 
quick  succession,  and  made  existence  easier, 
while  anticipation  of  the  next  surprise  kept 
attention  and  imagination  at  a  stretch  to  be- 
hold the  next  wonder  that  should  happen. 
The  over-mechanical  development  of  things 
which  has  made  our  hurry  and  complication 
too  great  was  unguessed  at  that  time,  and 
only  the  delight  of  growing  ease  was  perceived. 

The  conquering  of  space  by  the  railroad,  and 
of  time  by  the  telegraph;  the  increase  in  wealth 
and  comfort;  in  the  desire  for  learning  and 
spread  of  education;  the  feeling  of  enlarged  op- 
portunity, as  the  great  United  States  rounded 
out   to   its   present   boundaries;   all  these  ele- 


THE    MIDDLE    YEARS  207 

ments  combined  to  give  everyone  a  forward- 
looking  cheerful  expectation. 

The  Mexican  War,  resulting  as  It  did  in 
complete  victory,  gave  the  self-confidence  of 
success  to  our  soldiers.  The  pioneer  spirit 
which  in  America  had  so  long  driven  its  child- 
ren further  west  to  find  the  "Something  hid 
behind  the  ranges"  let  only  the  Pacific  Ocean 
arrest  its  onward  career.  Gold  was  discover- 
ed in  California,  and  the  mad  rush  to  the  West 
went  across  the  plains  In  '49.  How  romantic 
it  all  was!  Life  was  a  joyous  adventure  to  be 
met  with  enthusiasm,  to  be  followed  with 
eager  delight. 

When  reading  of  the  political  campaign  of 
1839-40  in  which  the  Whigs  elected  Harrison 
President,  It  seems  a  performance  boyish  and 
boisterous  beyond  any  that  has  been  carried 
on  before  or  since.  The  songs,  set  to  familiar 
tunes;  the  log-cabins  mounted  on  wheels  and 
drawn  about  to  represent  the  home  of  "Old 
Tippecanoe"  as  they  called  General  Harrison; 
the  barrels  of  hard  cider  kept  continually  on 
tap  for  his  supporters,  said  to  be  his  favorite 
drink;  the  ships  In  honor  of  Van  Buren  (no 
especial  drink  specified);  the  slang-whanging 


208  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

by  all  newspapers;  the  processioning  and  the 
yelling;  it  all  sounds  like  a  prolonged  college 
celebration.  The  Raleigh  Whigs  built  a  log 
cabin  for  campaign  headquarters,  which  was 
twenty-five  by  forty  feet  in  dimensions.  The 
young  Whigs  cut  the  logs  in  the  woods,  hauled 
them  in,  and  built  it  in  one  day.  Here  was 
the  place  for  the  Whig  speakings.  The  Marks 
Creek  Whigs,  and  others  from  that  side  of  the 
county,  came  in  in  procession,  bringing  bar- 
rels of  hard  cider  with  them.  They  joined  in 
a  whole  day's  rally,  finished  up  with  a  big  bar- 
becue. The  whole  State  went  wild.  A  log 
cabin  came  rolling  through  the  country  all  the 
way  from  Salisbury  to  Raleigh,  with  doings 
every  step  of  the  way.  It  was  a  merry  time, 
but  although  all  this  boisterous  party  spirit  was 
afoot,  yet  there  were  many  other  things  more 
permanently  worth  while  to  be  considered. 

An  interest  in  education,  as  mentioned 
before,  had  sprung  up  with  renewed  prosper- 
ity. Almost  at  the  very  beginning  the  far- 
sighted  fathers  had  established  a  State  Univer- 
sity, but  there  were  as  yet  no  public  schools  as 
we  now  have  them.  These  were  days  of  the 
Academy  and  the  private  school.  There  were 
many  of  these  all  over  the  State,  both  for  boys 


THE    MIDDLE    YEARS  209 

and  girls,  and  also  we  had  had  a  good  many 
more  or  less  successful  and  permanent  In  Wake 
County.  Saint  Mary's  school  in  Raleigh  was 
at  first  a  boys'  school.  It  was  opened  in  1834 
but  was  soon  changed  to  what  it  has  remain- 
ed. Pleasant  Grove  Academy  at  Wake  Forest 
was  another  girls'  school  of  this  county. 
Wake  Forest  College  was  founded  by  the 
Baptist  denomination,  and  located  on  the 
plantation  of  Dr.  Calvin  Jones  in  the  year 
1833.  The  first  president  was  that  consecrat- 
ed man.  Dr.  Waitt. 

This  was  the  first  denominational  college 
In  North  Carolina,  and  has  been  of  untold 
benefit  to  the  whole  State.  It  was  founded 
under  the  idea  that  it  should  be  an  Industrial 
school,  and  this  Idea  was  also  used  at  the  be- 
ginning of  Davidson  College  a  few  years  later. 
Trinity  College  also  was  founded  in  these 
next  few  years,  but  to  Wake  Forest  belongs 
the  honor  of  being  the  first  In  the  field.  The 
industrial  idea  was  soon  abandoned. 

In  the  year  1840  was  enacted  the  act  which 
made  available  the  scant  school  funds  of  the 
State  which  had  been  accumulating  for  years, 
and  those  counties  which  were  willing  to  sup- 


THE    MIDDLE    YEARS  211 

plement  their  quota  of  State  money  could 
establish  free  schools.  Wake  was  one  of  these 
counties,  although  not  many  free  schools  were 
opened  as  yet,  and  those  taught  only  the  most 
elementary  branchesof  reading  and  writing  and 
a  little  arithmetic.  Nevertheless,  every  child  of 
Raleigh  should  be  taught  why  one  of  our  school 
buildings  is  called  the  "Murphy"  and  one 
the  'Wiley"  school. 

Other  Ideas  of  reform  were  abroad  in 
Raleigh.  There  was  begun  at  that  time  the 
first  temperance  society,  and  though  this  died 
out  afterwards,  the  Idea  lived  on  to  later 
fruition. 

In  the  year  1841  the  population  of  Wake 
County  was  eighteen  thousand,  and  by  the 
year  1860  It  had  increased  to  thirty  thousand. 

After  the  railroads  were  completed,  Raleigh 
might  seem  to  settle  to  quiet  growth  because 
the  new  era  had  begun  in  earnest  with  the 
coming  of  the  railroad,  and  all  sorts  of  new 
comforts  and  luxuries  hitherto  uncommon  had 
come  in  with  transportation.  To  read  the 
grocers'  advertisements,  comparing  them  with 
a  few  years  before,  you  may  notice  how  they 
change  from  a  simple  list  of  heavy  groceries 


212  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

and  no  more,  to  long  columns  advertising 
dainties  such  as  candies,  raisins,  figs,  cordials 
and  syrups,  dried  fruits,  teas  and  coffees, 
enough  to  make  the  mouth  water. 

Milliners,  too,  began  to  advertise  styles 
straight  from  Paris,  and  trimmed  bonnets 
from  New  York,  these  last  of  the  coal-scuttle 
variety,  huge  and  deep,  to  be  worn  with 
dresses  which  spread  and  frilled  at  the  bottom 
like  a  two-yard-wide  morning-glory  blossom. 
The  ladies  wore  tight  bodices  and  large  leg-o- 
mutton  sleeves  made  to  stand  out  by  means  of 
cushions  at  the  shoulders. 

To  match  such  ladies'  dresses,  the  beaux 
wore  tight  blue  tailcoats  with  brass  buttons 
and  high  velvet  collars,  nankeen  trousers  with 
straps  under  the  foot  to  hold  them  down 
(these  were  tan  colored,  lighter  than  khaki) 
and  high  bell-crowned  beavers,  light  colored, 
and  made  with  wide  curly  brims.  Their 
cravats  were  like  young  tablecloths,  winding 
twice  round  the  neck,  holding  up  the  sharp 
points  of  their  white  collars  against  their  ears. 
Ladies'  hoop  skirts  grew  wide  or  grew  narrow 
according  to  the  fashion,  the  men's  trousers 
grew  more  open  or  narrowed  at  the  foot,  year 


THE    MIDDLE    YEARS  213 

by  year,  but  all  through  the  period  I  am  de- 
scribing, clothing  was  exaggerated  and  extrav- 
agant, and  many  yards  of  material  went  to 
the  making  of  a  single  costume. 

Soon  after  the  coming  of  the  railroad,  we  see 
a  soda  fountain  advertised,  and  soon  again,  a 
circus  with  a  menagerie.  More  amusements 
were  demanded,  more  luxuries  obtainable. 

The  telegraph  was  not  a  common  conven- 
ience until  about  18SS,  and  was  not  used  to 
run  trains  by,  at  first.  You  did  not  know 
what  had  become  of  your  family  after  the 
train  had  carried  them  away  until  at  least  a  week 
after  when  they  wrote  you  their  adventures. 
You  simply  had  to  sit  patiently  and  wait 
for  the  train  you  expected  to  take,  until  it 
finally  rolled  in  around  the  curve,  to  the  sta- 
tion. 

But  indefinite  though  the  schedules  were, 
goods  and  people  could  be  moved  from  place 
to  place  as  never  before.  A  farm.er  could  dis- 
pose of  his  produce  to  better  advantage, 
could  sell  his  cotton  and  tobacco  at  the  sea- 
board. Agriculture,  which  had  become  less 
efficient  rather  than  more  so  during  the  first 
third  of  the  nineteenth  century,  picked  up  in 


214  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

interest  as  its  rewards  became  greater.  The 
articles  in  the  papers  treated  of  good  methods, 
and  the  first  agricultural  fair  was  held  in 
Raleigh  in  1833.  News  items  about  large 
crop  yields  were  common,  and  in  1841  the 
amount  of  one  hundred  ninety  bushels  of  corn 
to  the  acre  is  given  as  the  best  record  of  the 
two  Carolinas. 

That  other  kind  of  cultivation  which  is 
spelled  Culture  with  a  big  C,  and  which  must 
be  neglected  for  awhile  until  a  new  country 
has  time  for  it,  began  in  this  era  to  be  more 
sought  after.  Good  books  are  advertised  for 
sale  in  each  issue  of  the  Raleigh  papers.  A 
Richmond  gentleman,  visiting  Raleigh  for  the 
railroad  celebration,  describes  his  morning 
spent  in  the  North  Carolina  book  store,  and 
tells  of  the  interesting  literature  he  found  there. 
About  this  time,  sandwiched  in  among  law, 
religion,  text  books  and  almanacs,  we  find  ad- 
vertised, DeTocqueville's  Travels  in  America^ 
Scott's  Novels,  and  Jane  Austen's  "Emma'\ 
besides  much  other  good  literature. 

The  Southern  Literary  Messenger  was  start- 
ed in  Richmond  as  early  as  1831,  and  was  one 
of  the  very  first  American  periodicals  devoted 


THE    MIDDLE    YEARS  215 

to  pure  literature.  On  the  list  of  original  sub- 
scribers which  made  its  publication  possible 
occur  the  names  of  several  Raleigh  people. 

After  1843,  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  according  to 
many  good  critics  our  greatest  American  poet, 
was  the  editor  of  this  magazine,  and  to  it  he 
contributed  some  of  his  loveliest  lyrics.  Books 
and  magazines  of  the  best  were  plentiful  as 
you  see  in  old  Raleigh,  and  all  the  means  of 
self-culture  were  available  here  which  were  to 
be  found  anywhere  in  the  United  States. 

But  all  through  these  times  of  expanding 
horizon  and  days  of  dawning  culture,  there 
was  an  undercurrent  of  discord,  a  voice  of 
coming  storm.  It  could  be  heard,  so  to  ex- 
press it,  only  when  silence  fell;  like  the  sound 
of  surf,  inland  on  a  still  night. 

The  North  and  South  had  been  for  thirty 
years  like  members  of  a  family  whose  individ- 
uals have  had  a  terrible  disagreement  on  fun- 
damentals, but  which  has  decided,  for  reasons 
of  policy  and  property,  to  hold  together  in 
outward  semblance  long  after  all  true  fellow- 
ship and  mutual  love  have  departed.  The 
subjects  which  divided  them,  slavery  and 
states  rights,  were  past  being  discussed  as  a 
general  theme    of  common  interest. 


I 


5     H 


U      O 

•=r  o 


THE    AlIDDLE    YEARS  217 

Feeling  on  both  sides  had  run  so  high  in 
Congress  that  full  statement  of  opinion  either 
way  was  difficult  to  tolerate.  Compromise 
after  compromise  had  been  arranged  by  first 
one  and  then  the  other  party,  each  side  had 
been  soothed  in  turn;  but  by  the  latter  years 
of  the  decades  we  are  describing,  further  ar- 
rangement of  differences  in  this  way  had  be- 
come a  stench  in  the  nostrils  of  either  side. 
One  thing  only  had  been  accomplished  by  this 
continual  compromising,  namely,  time  had 
been  given  so  that  the  nation  had  learned 
more  about  workable  self-government. 

Now  the  time  of  silent  ignoring  of  the  topics 
which  everyone  was  passionately  thinking 
about  in  their  hearts  was  nearly  past.  The 
calling  of  things  peaceful  when  all  inner  con- 
viction was  a  bitter  partizanship  had  to  find  a 
definite  end. 

North  Carolina  had  been  a  somewhat  back- 
ward state,  she  had  been  subject  to  certain 
conditions  which  had  made  her  so.  Her  in- 
tense independent  individualism  had  made  it 
hard  for  her  to  unite  her  sons  in  any  cause, 
and  the  Union  had  not  been  so  much  a  matter 
of  course  to  her  as  a  lesson  to  be  learned,  a 
course  to  be  thoughtfully  adopted. 


218  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

In  Raleigh,  as  the  fifties  died,  thoughtful 
men  sat  and  watched  all  their  commonwealth 
building  toward  a  great  Union,  crumble  day 
by  day.  While  no  one  would  admit  that  it 
was  in  any  danger,  all  were  aware  of  the  fact 
in  their  secret  hearts,  and  knew  that  any 
moment  might  set  the  whole  country  adrift 
as  in  the  swift  water  above  Niagara,  and  that 
the  falls  were  near. 

Young  heads  might  wish  a  change,  might 
wish  to  cast  the  die,  to  pass  the  Rubicon;  they 
might  tell  of  what  they  did  not  wish  to  be 
forced  to  advocate;  but  although  North  Caro- 
lina had  been  late  in  entering  the  Union,  yet 
she  felt  bitterly  sorry  to  leave  it. 

Meanwhile  the  young  men  found  the  cau- 
tious counsels  of  their  elders  very  slow  and 
cool.  Their  blood  was  up.  They  had  no  ex- 
perience of  war;  but  neither  had  they  any 
doubt  of  their  own  valor. 

Our  good  Governor  Ellis,  truly  honest, 
much  tried,  and  earnestly  trying  to  avert 
trouble,  and  those  wise  heads  which  stood 
with  him,  held  back  against  the  current  with 
all  their  influence,  but  the  young  men  had  got 
the   taste   of  that   exultation    which    coming 


THE    MIDDLE   YEARS  219 

Storm  gives  to  their  leaping  pulses.  Speech- 
making  might  satisfy  the  elder  folk,  but  they 
were  for  launching  out.  Issues  grew  ever 
more  tense.  Different  opinions  became  al- 
ways more  irreconcilable. 

In  the  spring  of  1861,  the  plot  of  ground 
where  the  Tucker  Building  now  stands  on 
Fayetteville  Street  was  the  place  where  the 
rival  factions  rioted.  Sumpter  had  been  fired 
upon,  but  still  there  were  those  who  hoped 
that  peace  would  be  restored.  Red  cockades 
were  mounted  by  those  anxious  for  secession, 
and  a  flag  representing  that  idea  was  raised, 
but  Union  men  fired  upon  it  and  tore  it 
down.  One  of  the  younger  Haywoods  (Dun- 
can) and  Basil  Manly,  returned  the  fire  of 
those  who  would  remove  it,  and  as  the  riot 
went  on  Governor  Ellis  came  to  quell  the  ex- 
citement. At  that  very  moment,  it  is  said, 
the  telegram  was  handed  him  announcing 
Lincoln's  call  for  troops  from  North  Carolina. 
Then  it  was  that  North  Carolina  seceded. 

Like  all  calamities,  the  War  of  1861  came 
suddenly,  and  was  greeted  with  painful  dis- 
may by  those  who  had  been  fondly  hoping 
against  all  hope  for  the  preservation  of  the 
Union. 


220  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Some  of  the  people  of  this  old  town  were 
very  sorry,  some  were  quite  exultant  and  gay, 
but  all  knew  where  they  must  stand.  The  hot 
secession  boys  and  the  men  who  had  hoped 
and  held  to  the  Union  all  enlisted  together; 
together  they  drilled  and  trained,  and  together 
they  fought,  and  side  by  side  some  of  them 
died,  on  Tennessee  hills,  and  in  Virginia  Valleys. 

There  is  nothing  that  changes  the  air,  that 
finishes  an  era,  that  closes  a  partition,  like  a 
war.  Thus  ended  the  times  of  youthful  exu- 
berance, and  the  tender  grace  of  that  vanished 
day  is  a  fast  fading  memory  to  a  few  old 
people,  survivors  of  a  time  which  the  young 
must  reconstruct  to  their  minds  painfully  by 
means  of  documents  and  histories. 

Many  years  ago,  an  old  friend  of  the  writer 
lay  dying  of  a  lingering  disease.  She  said  to 
me,  then  a  very  young  girl,  ''I  shall  be  glad  to 
go;  I  have  seen  so  much  trouble,  I  am  so  tired 
of  life."  I  wondered  at  her  feeling;  I  knew 
her  husband,  a  good  man;  she  had  many  loving 
children,  and  I  said  so  to  her.  She  only  look- 
ed at  me  with  that  pitying  expression  which 
the  older  folk  use  when  some  young  person 
philosophizes  about  the  life  which  is  just  fairly 


THE    MIDDLE    YEARS  221 

beginning  for  them.  '^Yes,  Honey,  all  that, 
but  you  must  remember  that  I  lived  through 
the  War,  and  you  young  folk  have  no  idea 
what  that  means." 

Those  who  know  by  full  experience  are  now 
very  few.  It  is  now  that  the  histories  are 
being  written.  Careful  minds  are  at  work  on 
many  a  painstaking,  earnest  book,  by  which 
those  who  came  after  may  reconstruct  the 
long  causes  and  the  swift  developments  of  that 
time  of  civil  conflict. 

From  Raleigh  there  went  away,  with  the 
Boys  in  Grey,  that  old,  happy,  care-free  time, 
and  though  many  good  times  have  come  since, 
that  especial  "before  the  war"  breezy  atmos- 
phere is  past  and  gone. 

Reading  the  newspapers  of  the  time,  one  is 
impressed  by  the  lack  of  hysteria,  the  clear  ac- 
ceptance of  consequences,  after  the  plunge  had 
taken  place.  When,  after  the  first  enthusi- 
asm was  over,  the  grim  realities  of  war  were 
more  and  more  felt,  and  strong  feeling  had 
to  be  constantly  controlled,  it  was  wonderful 
how  cheerfully,  to  outward  seeming,  the  people 
could  go  about  their  daily  tasks. 

Before  the  war  was  over,  heroic  exultation 
had  to  give  place  to  something  distressfully 


n 


o 


THE    MIDDLE    YEARS  223 

calm  and  stoic.  Bereavement  and  economic 
privation  were  two  things  bravely  endured, 
but  the  painful  story  of  them  is  almost  too  sad 
to  recall  even  today. 

When  we  look  over  the  sea,  and  remember 
the  things  which  have  been  endured,  and  are 
still  to  endure  so  long  after  the  actual  fighting 
has  come  to  an  end  and  the  killing  has  stopped, 
we  may  see  plainly  how  many  ills  are  harder 
to  pass  through  than  sudden  death. 

A  little  book,  written  while  the  pain  of  those 
times  was  fresh,  Mrs.  Spencer's  Last  Ninety 
Days  of  the  War,  is  a  most  vivid  picture  of  the 
mind  that  suffered  in  those  days.  It  is  a  nar- 
rative, not  a  special  pleading.  To  read  the 
book  at  a  sitting  is  to  feel  the  swell  and  throb 
of  the  personal  anxiety,  pity  and  sorrow  rise 
and  fall,  to  sense  the  privation,  suspense, 
heartbreak  and  disconsolate  apathy,  which 
arise  out  of  too  much  anguish.  It  hurts  a 
heart  which  loves  the  land  and  the  people  too 
much  to  be  easy  reading  even  so  long  after  all 
is  over. 

Perhaps  this  is  the  reason  that  it  has  been 
complained  of  the  City  of  Raleigh,  that  doing 
as  much  as  she  did  do  for  her  soldiers  in  this 


224  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

last  great  Armageddon,  yet  she  never  could 
accomplish  the  feat  of  cheering  her  boys  as 
they  marched  away.  We  stood  stonily  and 
tried  to  smile,  but  we  never  cheered;  we  knew, 
for  our  fathers  had  told  us. 

The  Capitol  has  looked  on  many  scenes  of 
joy  and  grave  import.  The  sky  has  arched 
over  the  tender  shadings  of  its  walls  for  many 
an  April.  The  young  leaves  were  as  fresh  and 
fair  in  the  spring  of  sixty-five  as  they  were  last 
year.  After  the  last  junior  recruit  had  march- 
ed away,  there  came  a  calm  ominous  time 
when  the  spring  sunshine  fell  on  a  hushed 
town.  People  were  uneasy,  and  stayed  at 
home.  Old  men  and  boys  were  the  only  ones 
at  home  with  the  women.  Streets  were  de- 
serted, homes  neglected,  and  the  stores  on 
Fayetteville  Street  were  closed. 

A  suspense  brooded  on  the  city,  for  some- 
thing strange  and  sinister  must  be  about  to 
happen.  Johnston's  army  had  gone  west, 
leaving  the  city  undefended.  Over  the  Fay- 
etteville road  they  said  Sherman  was  coming. 
Straining  ears  of  the  watching  ones  listened 
for  the  first  beat  of  martial  music.  Let  us 
quote  Governor  Swain  for  the  rest: 


THE    MIDDLE    YEARS  225 

"It  was  my  lot,  on  the  morning  of  April  13th, 
1865,  as  a  friend  and  representative  of  Gover- 
nor Vance,  to  find  on  approaching  the  south 
front  of  the  Capitol,  the  doors  and  windows 
closed,  and  a  deeper,  more  dreadful  silence 
shrouding  the  city  than  during  the  sad  catas- 
trophe (the  burning  of  the  old  State  House)  to 
to  which  I  have  referred. 

"I  met  at  the  south  front  of  the  Capitol, 
however,  a  negro  servant  who  waited  on  the 
Executive  Department,  the  only  human  being 
who  had  dared  to  venture  beyond  his  doors. 
He  delivered  me  the  keys,  and  assisted  me  in 
opening  the  doors  and  windows  of  the  Execu- 
tive Office,  and  I  took  my  station  at  the  en- 
trance with  a  safe  conduct  from  General  Sher- 
man in  my  mind,  prepared  to  surrender  the 
Capital  at  the  demand  of  his  approaching 
forces.  At  that  moment,  a  band  of  marauders, 
stragglers  from  Wheeler's  retiring  cavalry,  dis- 
mounted at  the  head  of  Fayetteville  Street, 
and  began  to  sack  the  stores  directly  contig- 
uous to,  and  south  of  Dr.  Haywood's  residence. 

I  apprised  them  immediately  that  Sherman's 
army  was  just  at  hand,  that  any  show  of  re- 
sistance might  result  in  the  destruction  of  the 


226  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

city,  and  urged  them  to  follow  their  retreating 
comrades. 

"A  citizen,  the  first  I  had  seen  beyond  his 
threshold  that  morning,  came  up  at  the  mo- 
ment and  added  his  remonstrances  to  mine, 
but  all  in  vain,  until  I  perceived  and  an- 
nounced that  the  head  of  Kilpatrick's  column 
was  in  sight.  In  a  moment,  every  member 
of  the  band  with  the  exception  of  their 
chivalric  leader,  was  in  the  saddle,  and  had 
his  horse  spurred  to  the  utmost  speed.  He 
drew  his  bridle  rein,  halted  in  the  center  of  the 
street,  and  discharged  his  revolver  until  his 
stock  of  ammunition  was  expended,  in  the 
direction,  but  not  within  carrying  distance  of 
his  foe;  when  he  too  fled,  but  attempted  to  run 
the  gauntlet  in  vain.  His  life  was  forfeited  in 
a  very  brief  interval. 

"The  remains  of  this  bold  man  rest  in  the 
cemetery,  covered  with  garlands  and  bewept 
by  beautiful  maidens,  little  aware  how  nearly 
the  city  may  have  been  on  the  verge  of  devasta- 
tion, and  how  narrowly  the  fairest  of  their  num- 
ber mxay  have  escaped  insult  and  death  from 
the  rash  act  of  lawless  warfare.  .  .  .  About 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  in  company  with 


THE    MIDDLE    YEARS  227 

Governor  Graham,  who  had  risked  Hfe  and 
reputation  In  behalf  of  this  community  to  an 
extent  of  which  those  who  derived  the  advan- 
tage are  Httle  aware,  I  dehvered  the  keys  of  the 
State  House  to  General  Sherman  at  the  guber- 
natorial mansion,  then  his  headquarters,  and 
received  his  assurance  that  the  Capitol  and 
city  should  be  respected  and  the  rights  of 
property  duly  regarded." 


CHAPTER  X 

Our  Benefactors 

AKE  COUNTY  has  owned  enough 
righteous  men  to  have  saved 
many  a  Sodom.  Beginning  to 
count  those  who  have  Hved  their 
Hves  worthily  before  all,  the  list 
is  a  very  long  one.  Singling  out  from  their 
number  those  whose  gifts  have  been  material, 
as  well  as  examples  in  the  fine  art  of  living 
well,  we  find  five  citizens  whose  hearts  have 
been  very  generotis  to  their  fellow  men.  A 
society  which  has  brought  forth  so  many 
hearts  bent  on  service  is  a  society  which  is 
fulfilling  its  best  objects,  a  thing  of  prime 
value. 

In  this  summary  only  those  whose  benefits 
were  first  and  especially  to  the  people  at  large 
are  given.  Many  donations  to  causes  de- 
nominational and  causes  educational  have 
been  made  by  different  ones  among  us,  but  we 
must  here  notice  the  more  general  response  to 
the  needs  of  our  city. 

Besides  these  men,  there  is  a  woman,  and 
she  not  a  native  or  resident,  who  must  have 

[228] 


OUR    BENEFACTORS  229 

her  meed  of  praise  for  the  good  work  she  began 
here. 

John  Rex,  the  tanner,  belongs  to  the  very 
earHest  period  of  Raleigh's  existence.  He 
came  here  from  Pennsylvania,  about  the 
time  of  the  first  sale  of  lots,  a  quiet  sort  of  man, 
simple  in  his  dress  and  plain  in  his  ways.  He 
is  said  to  have  resembled  John  Quincy  Adams 
remarkably  in  face.  He  lived  to  a  good  old 
age  here,  was  never  married,  and  left  all  his 
money  to  found  a  hospital  in  the  city  of 
Raleigh. 

By  his  will  his  negroes  were  freed,  and  his 
property  allowed  to  increase  until  there  should 
be  sufficient  money  to  build  a  hospital  large 
enough  for  city  and  county.  Besides  this  he 
bought  a  large  number  of  city  lots  at  the 
second  sale  in  1814  or 'IS,  which  he  directed 
not  to  be  sold  until  the  estate  should  be  set- 
tled, and  the  hospital  building  provided.  He 
hoped  and  intended  that  the  value  of  these 
would  suffice  to  produce  a  maintenance  fund. 
The  securities  which  made  up  the  estate 
proper  were  much  diminished  or  practically 
wiped  out  by  the  War,  and  only  the  lots  re- 
mained, but  Mr.  Rex's  speculation  in  these  did 


230  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

not  fulfil  his  desire.  The  part  of  the  city  where 
the  smaller,  poorer  homes  were  being  built  ex- 
tended that  way,  and  this  did  not  permit  of  the 
good  prices  he  hoped  to  realize.  The  Rex 
Hospital,  therefore,  has  not  equalled  the  inten- 
tion of  its  founder,  in  that  instead  of  being 
a  well  supported  institution  from  the  first,  it 
has  been  struggling  constantly  for  adequate 
funds.  If  intentions,  however,  count  for  any- 
thing, those  which  gave  us  the  hospital  were 
as  broad  and  as  generous  and  as  full  of  con- 
structive philanthropy  as  anything  which  has 
been  done.  We  have  a  hospital,  and  it  bears 
the  name  of  John  Rex.  His  bequest  was  the 
nucleus.  In  1840,  that  wonderful  year,  the 
committee  to  administer  the  Rex  estate  was 
duly  named,  thus  beginning  another  good 
work,  and  Judge  Battle  appropriately  enough 
was  made  head  of  the  enterprise  which  was  so 
aided  and  fostered  by  his  son,  Richard  Battle, 
in  its  later  working  out. 

WilHam  Peace,  the  merchant,  left  a  large 
bequest  toward  the  education  of  women,  and 
Peace  Institute  today  bears  the  name  of  its 
founder. 

At  the  time  of  the  War  the  building  was  in- 
complete, and  was  used  in  its  unfinished  state 


OUR    BENEFACTORS  231 

for  a  military  hospital.  Since  the  War  it  has 
been  an  excellent  school,  maintained  by  the 
Presbyterians,  and  many  a  fine  woman  has 
had  her  educational  opportunities  there.  Not 
so  old  as  Saint  Mary's,  it  is  somewhat  a  sister 
institution,  a  school,  not  a  college.  The  funds 
which  were  to  have  made  it  independent  were 
lost  in  the  war-time  depreciation  of  values. 
As  in  the  case  of  Rex  Hospital,  it  is  the  thought 
that  remains. 

A  woman's  name  is  associated  with  the 
State  Hospital  for  the  insane.  This  stands 
on  a  hill  to  the  south-west  of  Raleigh,  which 
is  always  spoken  of  as  Dix  Hill,  although  I 
think  the  name  is  a  popular,  and  not  a  formal 
tribute,  to  the  good  woman  who  procured  the 
building  of  the  asylum. 

Dorothea  Dix  was  a  Massachusetts  woman, 
one  of  those  maiden  ladies  who  feel  the  callto 
mother  the  world.  Her  name  stands  beside  and 
not  at  all  beneath  the  names  of  Florence  Night- 
ingale, Clara  Barton  and  Elizabeth  Fry.  She 
was  mistress  of  a  small  independent  fortune, 
and  had  no  ties  to  hold  her  in  one  place,  so  she 
could  follow  her  desire  of  a  traveUng  life  in  the 
interest  of  her  chosen  cause. 


232  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

She  began  investigating  the  condition  of  the 
insane  in  all  parts  of  the  United  States,  later  in 
Canada,  and  finally  all  over  Europe. 

First  it  was  her  custom  to  make  a  tour  of  the 
State  she  wished  to  influence,  taking  volumin- 
ous notes  of  every  poorhouse  or  prison  where 
insane  or  paupers  were  kept.  This  she  did 
quietly  and  unobtrusively  in  the  guise  of  a 
private  person.  She  made  her  long  journeys 
alone  and  fearlessly,  and  records  that  she 
never  met  with  any  incivility  in  her  whole 
work.  In  the  year  1847  she  traveled  all  over 
North  Carolina,  and  the  facts  she  gathered 
there  she  wrote  into  a  memorial  to  the  Legis- 
lative Assembly  of  1848,  presenting  it  in  per- 
son, making  a  stay  in  Raleigh  for  the  purpose. 
She  was  told  by  those  to  whom  she  applied 
that  nothing  whatever  was  to  be  done.  It 
was  pleaded  that  the  people  would  never  per- 
mit the  necessary  taxes  to  be  levied.  The 
Democrats,  then  in  power,  had  been  overcome 
by  such  a  spasm  of  economy  that  they  even 
voted  to  leave  unlighted  the  lamps  which  hung 
in  the  portico  of  the  Capitol  while  the  Legisla- 
ture was  in  session. 

The  leading  Whigs,  feeling  thus  relieved  of 
all  responsibility,  said  that  they  could  do  no- 


OUR    BENEFACTORS  233 

thing  for  a  new  and  expensive  scheme  like  the 
building  of  an  insane  asylum  with  such  penu- 
rious opponents  in  the  saddle,  and  so  the  mat- 
ter was  at  a  deadlock. 

Dorothea  Dix  always  kept  a  diary  of  her 
efforts,  and  in  it  she  writes  of  her  campaign  in 
North  Carolina.  "This  morning  after  break- 
fast several  gentlemen  called,  all  Whigs. 
They  talked  of  the  hospital  and  said  the  most 
discouraging  things  possible.  I  sent  then  for 
several  of  the  leading  Democrats.  I  brought 
out  my  memorial,  and  said,  ^Gentlemen,  here 
is  the  document  I  have  prepared  for  your 
Assembly.  I  desire  you,  Sir,  to  present  it' 
(handing  it  to  a  Democrat  said  to  be  most 
popular  with  his  party),  and  'you  gentlemen,' 
said  I  to  the  whole  astonished  delegation,  'you,  I 
expect  to  sustain  the  motion  of  this  gentleman 
when  he  makes  one  to  print  the  same.'  "  The 
legislator  who  took  the  memorial  from  the 
hands  of  Miss  Dix  was  Mr.  Ellis  of  Rowan, 
who  afterward  became  the  Governor  of  North 
Carolina. 

The  first  result  was  that  the  bill  establish- 
ing an  asylum  for  the  insane  was  not  passed; 
but  Miss  Dix  had  led  many  a  forlorn  hope,  and 


234  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

she  did  not  know  what  the  word  failure  meant. 
Staying  at  the  same  hotel  with  her  were  Hon- 
orable James  Dobbin,  afterwards  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  and  his  wife.  Airs  Dobbin  was 
taken  very  ill,  and  Miss  Dix,  having  made 
friends  with  her  earlier,  came  and  nursed  her 
so  tenderly  in  her  illness  that  when  she  felt 
death  near,  from  her  dying  bed  she  remember- 
ed to  ask  her  husband,  as  her  last  request,  to 
champion  the  cause  Miss  Dix  had  at  heart. 
This  was  the  only  way  she  could  show  her 
gratitude  for  the  devotion  Miss  Dix  had  lav- 
ished upon  her. 

Mr.  Dobbin  went  from  his  wife's  funeral  to 
the  Assembly,  and  plead  so  eloquently  and 
feelingly,  his  eyes  wet  with  tears,  with  such 
great  effect,  that  the  bill  passed  its  final  read- 
ing with  one  hundred  one  "ayes,"  and  only  ten 
'^nays."  Miss  Dix  left  Raleigh  the  next  Decem- 
ber, as  she  said,  ''perfectly  happy,"  and  the 
State  Hospital  for  the  Insane,  which  she  would 
not  allow  to  be  named  for  her,  is  one  of  twenty 
established  in  the  United  States  by  her  efforts. 
She  was  reverenced  as  a  saint,  and  loved  as  a 
benefactress  by  the  whole  countiy,  and  especi- 
ally was  this  true  in  the  South,  as  it  is  said. 


OUR    BENEFACTORS  235 

Dorothea  Dix  is  the  only  one  of  our  benefact- 
ors who  did  not  spend  her  days  among  us,  but 
on  a  subsequent  visit  she  selected  the  site  for 
the  Hospital.  She  lived  to  extreme  old  age, 
dying  in  the  year  1880. 

Stanhope  PuUen  has  not  been  so  long  dead 
but  that  many  of  us  have  known  him  well  by 
sight,  and  have  greeted  him  daily  in  the  street. 
Except  as  he  expressed  his  opinion  in  action, 
his  thought  was  always  a  sealed  book.  An 
excellent  but  a  taciturn  man,  as  to  his  own 
affairs. 

He  was  born  on  a  farm  near  Neuse  Station 
in  Wake  County  in  1832.  His  mother  was 
EUzabeth  Smith,  sister  of  the  two  Smith 
brothers,  substantial  mxerchants  of  Raleigh. 
When  his  aunt,  Mrs  Richard  Smith,  was  left  a 
widow  she  employed  Mr.  Pullen  to  manage 
her  estate,  and  when  she  died  without  child- 
ren she  made  him  her  heir.  He  also  managed 
the  estate  of  his  cousin,  Mary  Smith  Morehead, 
which  was  left  as  a  bequest  to  the  University 
of  North  Carolina.  He  was  a  most  able  busi- 
ness man  and  everything  which  passed  through 
his  hands  seemed  to  prosper. 

After  the  war,  when  everything  was  utterly 
depleted,    and    the    start    toward    prosperity 


Our  monument  to  the  Soldiers  of  the  Confederacy,  with 
THE  Olivia  Raney  Library  in  the  background 


OUR    BENEFACTORS  237 

seemed  so  difficult,  Mr.  Pullen  used  his  ready 
cash  in  purchasing  property  in  Raleigh,  and 
in  this  way  acquired  the  Rayner,  formerly  the 
Polk  property,  and  he  extended  Blount  Street, 
by  moving  the  old  Polk  mansion  round  to  face 
Blount  Street  instead  of  closing  it. 

Thus  was  opened  the  best  residence  section 
of  Raleigh  during  the  eighties.  He  dealt 
most  liberally  with  the  city,  in  giving  all  the 
streets,  grading  and  graveling  them  free. 
Later  he  opened  a  large  tract  to  the  North 
of  the  town  at  first  popularly  called  'Tullen- 
town,"  and  sold  this  off  in  lots  for  cheaper 
homes. 

In  keeping  his  own  counsel  so  thoroughly, 
Mr.  Pullen  never  had  it  said  of  him,  ''Mr. 
Pullen  will  do  this"  or  "that."  He  seldom 
spoke  out  his  intentions.  His  mind  took 
knowledge  of  opportunities,  and  he  made 
money  out  of  his  ventures,  but  he  never  gave 
himself  the  least  uneasiness  over  the  result  of 
his  deaHngs,  never  bargained  or  dickered  as  to 
the  values  he  set  on  his  property.  He  offered 
his  land  at  what  he  beHeved  to  be  a  fair  price, 
and  never  apparently  cared  whether  the  buyer 
took  the  bargain  offered   or    not.      That   his 


238  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

prices  were  fair  is  shown  by  the  immense 
amount  of  property  which  passed  through 
his  hands  at  one  time  or  another.  One  year 
he  bought  quantities  of  cotton  on  speculation, 
and  a  friend  asked  him  whether  the  fluctua- 
tions of  the  market  did  not  cause  him  un- 
easiness. He  repHed  that  he  had  never  lost 
an  hour's  sleep  over  business  in  his  life.  He 
gave  to  the  city  the  land  that  is  now  Pullen 
Park,  and  moreover,  laid  it  out,  and  planted 
it  with  the  innumerable  trees  which  are  there 
today,  growing  while  he  sleeps. 

The  land  adjoining,  occupied  by  the  build- 
ings of  the  North  Carolina  State  College,  is 
also  a  gift  from  Mr.  Pullen  to  the  State,  and 
when  the  first  building  was  completed,  and 
the  workmen  were  clearing  away  the  lime  bar- 
rels and  brick-bats  preparatory  to  the  open- 
ing of  the  new  college,  Mr.  Pullen  appeared 
with  his  negro  helper,  Washington  Ligon, 
and  mule  and  plow,  and  laid  ofl^  the  drives 
and  paths  about  the  campus  with  his  own 
hand,  and  further  superintended  the  plant- 
ing of  the  cedars,  the  magnolias,  and  the 
willow  oaks  which  he  loved  best,  and  which 
loved  to  grow  for  him. 


OUR    BENEFACTORS  239 

He  personally  looked  after  the  repairs  on 
the  many  homes  he  rented  and  all  great  or 
small  repairs  were  done  as  needed,  but  he  re- 
fused to  be  hounded  about  improvements. 
It  was  no  use  for  a  good  tenant  to  take  the 
high  tone  about  repair,  for  he  would  be  quiet- 
ly and  simply  told  that  he  might  move  out  at 
once  if  conditions  were  disagreeable  to  him. 

At  the  same  time  Mr.  Pullen  was  well- 
known  as  the  kindest  and  most  liberal  of  land- 
lords. In  his  continual  rounds,  he  came  to 
know  certainly  who  was  in  want,  and  who  was 
worthy  of  help.  He  disHked  to  be  asked  for 
charity,  but  the  loads  of  wood,  the  supplies  of 
groceries  that  came  to  many  a  struggling 
widow,  or  poor  man  with  sickness  in  his  fam- 
ily, unsolicited  and  unacknowledged,  are 
known  only  to  the  recording  angel.  Thanks 
he  never  permitted. 

When  Edenton  Street  Methodist  Church 
was  being  built,  he  came  and  supervised  the 
construction  day  by  day,  and  saw  all  go  right, 
but  no  one  dared  to  ask,  "How  much  are  we 
to  depend  on  you  for,  in  paying  for  the  new 
church  .f"'  After  everybody  had  given  all  they 
could,  and  then  stretched  it  a  little  further, 


240  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Mr.  Pullen  placed  a  check  in  the  collection 
plate  which  made  him  the  largest  contributor 
to  the  building  fund. 

The  State  College  was  so  beholden  to  him 
for  its  site,  that  they  once  sent  an  ambassador 
to  him  to  ask  for  his  portrait  for  their  halls. 
One  of  the  trustees  was  commissioned,  and 
made  an  eloquent  plea  for  this  reasonable  re- 
quest. Mr.  Pullen  listened  with  his  quizzical 
little  glance  and  a  lift  of  his  eyebrow,  and  after 
the  speech  was  quite  finished,  he  answered 
very  pleasantly,  'Well,  they'll  never  get  it; 
Good-morning."  Hence  there  is  no  portrait 
of  Mr.  Pullen  extant. 

Mr.  Pullen  never  married,  and  lived  during 
the  latter  years  of  his  life  with  his  niece,  Mrs. 
Lizzie  Pullen  Belvin,  wife  of  Charles  Belvin. 
He  went  and  came  on  the  street  cars,  and  was 
always  most  pleasant  to  the  neighbors  riding 
down  town  with  him;  but  the  next  time  they 
passed  him  on  the  street  he  would  forget  to 
answer  their  greeting.  Everyone  knowing 
him  would  say,  "That  is  only  Mr.  PuUen's 
way,"  and  greet  him  gladly  the  next  time  he 
felt  free  to  notice  his  friends.  These  manifest 
oddities  only  made  him  more  interesting,  while 


OUR    BENEFACTORS  241 

no  one  has  ever  done  more  for  Raleigh,  or  allow- 
ed less  credit  to  be  given  to  him  for  his  gener- 
osity. Pullen  Park  bears  his  name,  one  won- 
ders by  what  oversight  of  the  giver.  He  was 
a  great  believer  in  technical  training  and  in 
the  higher  education  for  women.  He  also 
gave  the  site  of  the  State  College  for  Women 
at  Greensboro.  He  died  quite  old,  on  June 
25th,  1895. 

John  T.  Pullen  was  the  nephew  of  Stanhope 
Pullen,  and  as  a  young  man  was  often  the  al- 
moner of  his  uncle.  Both  these  men  were 
truly  charitable,  but  while  Stanhope  Pullen 
was  lonely  with  the  reserve  of  a  man  who  is 
independent  of  others,  his  nephew  was  the 
heart  friend  of  everyone  who  needed  a  friend. 
It  was  said  of  him  that  he  served  God  for  a 
living  and  ran  a  bank  to  pay  expenses.  The 
Savings  Bank  that  every  child  in  Raleigh 
called  Uncle  John  Pullen's  Bank,  was  well  and 
conservatively  run,  but  his  real  business  con- 
sisted in  his  charities,  in  his  furnishing  forth 
of  a  Christian  ideal  without  a  flaw,  a  life  that 
no  one  could  call  insincere  or  cavil  at — that 
no  one  could  ridicule  as  narrow,  or  condemn  as 
fanatic. 


o 
o 

E- 

< 
< 


o    I 


o    u 

o 

«    2: 


OUR    BENEFACTORS  243 

Everybody  knew  and  loved  him.  Children 
followed  him.  Men  who  were  not  working 
much  at  Christianity  might  criticise  others, 
but  they  could  not  say,  and  never  did  say, 
that  John  Pullen  was  not  a  good  man. 

The  poor  were  his  adorers.  He  was  most 
at  home  with  them  because  he  could  do  them 
the  most  good.  If  there  was  a  religious  meet- 
ing in  any  church  he  was  there;  he  built  and 
largely  maintained  a  church  of  his  own,  which 
was  really  of  the  Baptist  denomination,  but 
which  was  called  John  Pullen's  church  as  if  it 
was  of  some  especial  faith  that  carried  it  fur- 
ther than  mere  denomination  could  do. 

John  Pullen's  most  precious  benefits  to  the 
place  of  his  birth  were  spiritual.  He  was  the 
standard  of  goodness  for  Raleigh.  True,  he 
gave  largely  to  charities  during  his  life;  he 
gave  always  and  widely  to  the  poor,  generous- 
ly to  his  church,  in  many  little  ways  to  child- 
ren whom  he  always  loved;  to  a  tired  old 
colored  woman  a  coin  in  passing  with  the  re- 
quest that  she  ride  home  on  the  street  car;  to 
a  wild  and  rowdy  drummer  an  inappropriate 
Bible,  which  was  accepted  shamefacedly,  and 
which  brought  the  young  man  to  his  knees 


244  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

after  many  days.  He  gave  himself,  every  day 
and  all  the  year.  As  a  young  man  his  san- 
guine and  sympathetic  temperament,  not  yet 
sanctified,  brought  him  into  trouble.  He  was 
a  bit  dissipated,  but  he  left  all  that  early 
behind,  except  as  the  memory  of  it  helped 
him  to  speak  to  the  wrong-doer  understand- 
ingly.  Mr.  Pullen  lived  his  later  life  with 
his  niece,  Mrs.  Kate  Belvin  Harden,  wife  of 
John  Harden. 

When  he  died  in  1913,  the  city  arose  as  one 
man  to  show  how  much  he  was  beloved.  The 
factories  closed,  the  school  children  came,  the 
Governor  and  state  officials  as  well,  together 
with  the  rich  and  poor,  while  all  churches 
united  to  honor  his  memory.  The  city 
whistles  were  silenced  for  the  day  he  lay  in 
state,  and  several  convicts  came  out  unguarded 
in  their  stripes  from  the  Penitentiary,  sent 
by  their  fellows  to  lay  a  cross  made  of  prison 
blooms  on  his  coffin,  and  returned  to  prison 
sobbing  for  the  loss  of  their  friend.  His 
works  do  follow  him. 

Of  the  five  men  one  remains  to  be  mentioned. 
The  other  four  were  all  bachelors.  The  woman, 
Miss  Dix,  although  not  one  of  our  own  people, 


OUR    BENEFACTORS  245 

was  assisted  in  gaining  her  benevolent  desire 
by  a  woman  friend,  so  that  the  State  Hospital 
represents  at  one  and  the  same  time,  awaken- 
ed love  for  the  unfortunate  among  our  people, 
zeal  for  humanity  in  Miss  Dix,  and  the  result 
of  a  love  which  blossomed  in  loss,  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  dying  request  of  Mrs.  Dobbin 
to  her  husband. 

Another  and  the  last  of  our  benefactors  to 
this  time,  was  Richard  Beverly  Raney.  He 
has  given  the  city  more  wholesome  recreation 
and  delight  than  anyone  can  know,  and  doing 
this  has  also  commemorated  an  ideal  union,  a 
love  story  more  beautiful  than  fiction.  And 
so  the  Olivia  Raney  Library  also  came  out  of 
love  and  loss. 

R.  B.  Raney  was  born  in  Granville  County 
in  1860.  He  had  no  chance  for  a  college  edu- 
cation, although  he  was  a  man  who  would  have 
profited  by  one  if  it  had  been  possible.  He 
had  his  living  to  earn.  He  became  clerk  at  the 
Yarborough  Hotel  under  Doctor  Blacknall's 
management,  being  known  to  the  latter  as  a 
worthy  boy,  to  whom  he  gave  the  position 
out  of  friendship. 

Mr.  Raney  made  good,  was  promoted,  and 
finally  became  owner  as  well  as  manager  of  the 


246  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Hotel.  He  was  successful  always,  and  be- 
came agent  also  for  the  state  for  one  of  the 
best  Insurance  companies. 

He  married  Olivia  Cowper,  daughter  of 
Pulaski  Cowper,  and  she  died  after  only  a  year 
and  a  half  of  married  life. 

Soon  after,  there  was  a  movement  begun  to 
start  a  city  library  by  general  subscription. 
Mr.  Raney  heard  of  it,  and  modestly  claimed 
the  privilege  of  giving  the  whole  amount  and 
making  the  gift  a  memorial  to  his  lost  wife. 
Accordingly  the  building  was  placed  on  one 
of  the  very  choice  sites  of  Raleigh,  facing  the 
Capitol,  and  was  built,  equipped,  decorated 
and  furnished  in  every  particular  by  him.  Af- 
ter the  books,  four  thousand  in  number,  were 
catalogued,  and  everything  was  in  readiness, 
Mr.  Raney  had  the  library  incorporated,  and 
conveyed  it  to  a  self-perpetuating  board  of 
trustees,  to  be  used  as  a  free  library  for  the 
white  people  of  Raleigh.  This  gift  he  made 
in  his  prime,  and  before  he  became  the  com- 
paratively wealthy  man  he  was  at  his  death. 

During  the  rest  of  his  years  Mr.  Raney 
bought  new  books  constantly  for  the  library, 
but    he    refused    to  dictate,  or  to   take  any 


OUR    BENEFACTORS  247 

managing  part  in  its  affairs.  He  would  be 
only  one  among  a  number  of  its  trustees. 

He  married  a  second  time,  and  the  home  he 
built  for  his  second  wife  stands  on  the  opposite 
corner  of  Salisbury  and  Hillsboro  Streets 
across  from  the  library  building.  He  died  in 
1909,  after  his  library  had  been  a  joy  to  the 
town  for  nine  years. 

Mr  Raney  was  always  very  averse  to  any 
commendation,  and  would  turn  the  subject 
quickly  if  anyone  alluded  in  his  presence  to 
his  generosity.  He  remains  a  very  great  bene- 
factor to  the  city  if  reform  is,  as  it  is  said  to 
be,  a  matter  of  substitution.  What  is  the 
great  value  of  an  institution  which  fills  the 
mind  with  innocent  pleasure  and  leaves  no 
room  for  evil  thoughts.^  What  is  it  worth  to 
a  young  mind  to  reach  out  and  find  food  and 
interest  which  without  the  gift  of  books 
would  be  lacking.^  If  books  are  worth  what 
we  know  them  to  be  worth,  how  shall  we 
thank  the  man  who  made  the  best  literature 
free  to  any  person  who  will  take  it  home  and 
read  it.^ 

We  are  beneficiaries  of  an  institution  now  so 
much  a  part  of  the  scheme  of  things  in  Raleigh 


248  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

that  if  it  were  to  be  closed  for  a  month,  or  even 
for  a  week,  the  whole  population  would  be  up 
in  arms  to  reclaim  the  privilege  which  they 
had  not  sufficiently  appreciated  because  it 
was  so  absolutely  free. 


CHAPTER  XI 

Distinguished  Visitors 

ANY  people  whose  names  are  writ- 
ten large  in  the  books  of  fame 
have  visited  Raleigh  in  course 
of  its  existence.  Washington 
did  not  come  this  way  in  1791 
on  his  trip  through  the  United  States  of  his 
day  because  the  city  was  only  as  it  were,  a 
place  on  paper.  He  went  to  older  commun- 
ities in  North  Carolina,  both  in  the  east  and 
in  the  west.  His  itinerary  brought  him  as 
near  as  Salem,  which  was  his  last  stop  as  he 
returned  into  Virginia  after  his  Southern 
journey. 

Lafayette,  however,  when  he  returned  to 
America  in  his  old  age  and  went  on  a  tour  of 
the  land  he  had  helped  to  free  from  oppression, 
made  a  memorable  visit  to  Raleigh.  He  trav- 
eled in  a  carriage  with  a  constantly  changing 
military  escort,  which  accompanied  him  from 
one  of  his  stages  or  stopping  places  to  the 
next. 

He  entered  Raleigh  from  Halifax,  over  the 
Louisburg  road,  spent  two  days,  and  on  the 

[249] 


250  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

third  left  the  city  for  Fayetteville.  This  was 
early  in  March  of  the  year  1825.  He  brought 
with  hini  as  personal  companions  his  son, 
George  Washington  Lafayette,  and  a  secretary. 

Previous  to  his  entry  into  Raleigh  he  spent 
the  night  with  Allen  Rogers,  grandfather  of 
Rowan  Rogers,  beyond  Neuse  River,  on  the 
old  Louisburg  road,  and  was  met  several  miles 
from  town  by  the  Wake  County  Military 
Company  and  by  the  Mecklenberg  County 
Cavalry,  come  from  Charlotte  for  the  pur- 
pose, as  well  as  by  a  good  many  citizens 
on  horseback,  which  made  a  most  imposing 
cavalcade. 

Arriving  in  Raleigh,  he  was  feasted  and 
praised  and  speechified  over,  just  as  Wake 
County  and  Raleigh  would  delight  to  do  in 
honoring  such  a  national  friend.  He  was  en- 
tertained at  the  old  Governor's  Mansion  at 
the  foot  of  Fayetteville  Street.  The  first 
State  House  was  then  in  existence,  and 
beneath  its  dome  stood  the  famous  marble 
Satue  of  Washington,  which  Lafayette  con- 
templated and  praised  for  its  likeness  to  his 
beloved  Commander  of  the  old  days.  The 
engraved  picture  of  him  so  standing  with  a 
lady  beside  him,  said  to  represent  Aliss  Betsy 


DISTINGUISHED    VISITORS  251 

John  Haywood,  daughter  of  the  State  Treas- 
urer, was  made  at  the  time,  and  a  copy  of  this 
is  still  an  interesting  relic  of  the  Hall  of  History. 
It  was  made  from  a  painting  executed  by 
Jacob  Marling,  a  Raleigh  artist,  who  also 
painted  the  old  State  House. 

Lafayette,  grown  old  after  his  stormy  life,was 
a  small,  spare,  quick-moving  man,  emotional 
and  impulsive  in  his  ways,  while  our  Revo- 
lutionary hero.  Colonel  Polk,  was  a  giant  six 
feet  four  inches  in  his  stockings.  Of  course 
the  welcoming  of  the  distinguished  guest  was 
due  to  the  surviving  Revolutionary  officer, 
who  had  been  his  friend  and  former  comrade 
in  arms,  and  who  was  at  that  time  perhaps  the 
most  distinguished  citizen  of  Raleigh. 

So  it  was  Colonel  Polk  who,  walking  beside 
Lafayette,  entered  the  east  portico  of  the  State 
House  with  him  and,  pausing,  turned  with  him, 
so  that  the  people  assembled  might  see  the 
adopted  son  of  the  Father  of  our  Country. 
Lafayette,  whose  heart  was  as  warm  and  whose 
emotions  were  as  ready  as  they  were  when  he 
was  a  gallant  boy,  suddenly  was  overcome 
with  feeling,  and  turned  and  threw  himself 
upon  the  breast  of  his  old  friend,  kissing  him 
on  both  cheeks  with  enthusiasm. 


252  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

A  shout  of  glee  rose  from  the  spectators  who 
had  never  before  chanced  to  see  grown  men 
kiss  each  other,  and  Colonel  Polk,  scarlet  and 
embarrassed,  his  Scotch-Irish  reserve  all  up- 
set, tried  to  pat  back  his  emotional  friend  and 
pull  away  from  his  embrace,  while  at  the 
same  time  he  was  unwilling  either  to  hurt  his 
feelings  or  to  jeopardise  his  own  dignity. 

Lafayette  had  forgotten  his  English  very 
largely,  from  disuse,  and  unfortunately  had 
become  somewhat  deaf.  He  had  a  few  phrases 
which  did  duty  for  many  occasions.  He 
would  say,  ''This  is  a  great  country"  and  *'I 
remember,"  without  saying  just  what.  He 
would  say  to  an  admiring  citizen  by  way  of 
conversation,  "Are  you  married.^"  If  the 
answer  was  in  the  affirmative  he  would 
say,  ''Happy  man,"  if  "No"  he  would  rejoin, 
"Lucky  dog." 

Now  Colonel  Polk  informed  General  Lafay- 
ette in  his  first  conversation  with  him  of  the 
death  of  his  first  wife,  whom  Lafayette  re- 
membered, the  wife  whom  he  lost  before  he 
came  to  Raleigh  to  live.  Lafayette  did  not 
quite  catch  his  remarks,  and  as  w^as  customary 
answered,  "Lucky  Dog!" 


DISTINGUISHED    VISITORS  253 

To  an  American  of  today  or  yesterday, 
Lafayette  was  the  sign  and  symbol  of  some- 
thing very  precious,  of  a  national  romance  of 
history  that  stirs  us  to  the  marrow  then  and 
now.  His  coming  was  a  great  honor;  his  per- 
sonality was  so  kindly  and  so  sincere  as  to  fill 
the  heart  with  warm  regard ;  and  when,  in  a  few 
years  after  his  memorable  visit  his  death  oc- 
curred and  the  slow-moving  news  came  into 
North  Carolina,  all  the  State  newspapers  were 
put  into  mourning  for  him  by  broad  black 
lines  between  their  columns,  customary  at 
that  time  as  showing  respect  to  some  great 
public  man  or  president  at  his  passing. 

Lafayette  rode  out  of  Raleigh  to  Fayette- 
ville,  whither  he  was  accompanied  by  the 
Mecklenburg  Cavalry,  and  was  given  an 
especial  festival  in  the  town  named  for  him. 

Our  next  great  figure  who  came  to  visit  us 
was  Henry  Clay,  the  great  Conciliator,  and 
it  was  at  the  time  when  he  was  Whig  candi- 
date for  President.  Notwithstanding  this  he 
came,  not  as  a  partizan,  as  he  announced,  but 
as  the  guest  of  the  whole  State,  and  as  such 
he  showed  forth  his  charming  personality. 
His  visit  took  place  in  the  summer  of  1844, 


254  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

and  he  stayed  a  week.  He  made  himself 
agreeable  in  his  inimitable  way,  and  is  said  to 
have  attended  church  on  Sunday  at  Edenton 
Street  M.  E.  Church  with  the  mother  of  Judge 
Badger.  The  story  of  his  Raleigh  letter  has 
been  told  elsewhere.  He  was  by  no  means 
alone  in  his  idea  that  it  was  not  time  to  admit 
Texas  into  the  Union,  but  the  minds  of  the 
men  of  North  Carolina,  without  regard  to 
poHtical  affiliation,  were  set  on  holding  their 
own  as  regarded  taking  their  slaves  at  will  to 
any  part  of  the  south-west,  and  neither 
Clay  nor  his  friends  thought  for  a  moment  that 
he  would  go  unpunished  politically  for  the 
stand  he  took. 

His  visit  was  a  continuous  ovation;  he  stay- 
ed at  the  home  of  Kenneth  Rayner,  son-in- 
law  of  Colonel  Polk,  who  lived  in  the  old  Polk 
mansion.  It  was  under  one  of  the  great  trees, 
said  to  be  the  white  oak  which  stands  in  the 
side  yard  of  what  lately  was  the  home  of  Colo- 
nel A.  B.  Andrews,  that  the  famous  letter  was 
written. 

A  young  lady  of  Granville  County  presented 
him  while  he  was  in  Raleigh  with  a  vest  of  silk, 
spun,  dyed  and  woven  by  her  own  hand,  and 


DISTINGUISHED    VISITORS  255 

made  up  ready  to  be  worn.  This  she  begged 
him  to  wear  at  his  inauguration,  the  next 
spring;  and  he  graciously  promised  to  do  this 
should  he  be  elected.  But  Clay  was  never  in- 
augurated. He  never  attained  the  presidency. 
James  K.  Polk,  a  Democrat  from  Tennessee, 
but  descended  from  the  North  Carolina  family, 
and  a  cousin  of  Colonel  William  Polk,  was 
elected,  and  President  Tyler,  wishing  to  in- 
fluence history  before  he  left  the  White  House, 
signed  the  bill  admitting  Texas  to  the  Union, 
action  which  precipitated  the  war  withA/[exico 
immediately. 

President  Polk  went  to  the  University  of 
North  Carolina  in  1845  to  make  the  Com- 
mencement address  and  passed  throughRaleigh 
at  that  time,  making  the  first  of  our  President- 
visitors.  Being  North  Carolina  born,  he  was 
received  as  a  son  of  the  State,  and  among  his 
party  on  the  day  he  went  to  Chapel  Hill  was 
Miss  Jane  Hawkins  of  Raleigh,  besides  many 
gentlemen.  President  Buchanan,  called  the 
''Sage  of  Kinderhook,"  gave  an  address  at 
Chapel  Hill  Commencement  in  1859.  He  was 
entertained  by  General  L.  O'B.  Branch  on  his 
return  to  Raleigh,  and  visited  Nathaniel 
Macon  before  leaving  the  State. 


That  great  white  oak,  called  the    ''Hexry  Clay  Tree." 
It  is  said  to  be  the  tallest  oak  in  Raleigh,  as  well  as 
the  most  historic.     It  stands  in  the  yard  formerly  be- 
longing  TO   THE    LATE    CoLONEL   A.    B.    AnDREWS 


DISTINGUISHED    VISITORS  257 

We  must  now  tell  of  one  of  the  grandsons 
of  the  County  who  returned  in  1860.  It  was 
Joseph  Lane,  grandson  of  Jesse  Lane^  one  of 
the  less  conspicuous  brothers  of  Joel.  He  was 
candidate  for  Vice-President  with  Brecken- 
ridge,  on  the  Whig  ticket  that  year,  and  was 
defeated.  Joseph  Lane's  father,  John  Lane, 
was  born  in  Raleigh,  but  moved  early  to  west- 
ern North  Carolina,  where  Joseph  was  born 
in  180L  As  early  as  1804  the  whole  family 
had  moved  to  Kentucky.  By  1822  we  find 
young  Joseph  already  a  member  of  the  Indiana 
Legislature,  barely  past  his  majority,  and  a 
farmer  and  trader,  having  founded  his  fortune 
at  a  time  when  most  boys  are  still  dependent, 
and  in  1 845  when  the  Mexican  War  was  declared 
he  volunteered  as  a  private.  He  was  almost 
immediately  raised  from  the  ranks  and  soon  be- 
came a  Colonel,  and  again  a  few  months  after 
he  was  commissioned  Brigadier-General.  He 
was  third  in  commiand  at  Buena  Vista,  and 
fought  at  Vera  Cruz  against  Santa  Anna. 
He  was  the  hero  of  Cerro  Gordo,  winning  that 
victory  against  heavy  odds.  He  left  the  army 
with  the  rank  of  Major-General. 

Upon  returning  to  Indiana  after  the  Mexican 
War,  he  was  appointed  Governor  of  Oregon 


258  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Territory,  and  showed  his  bravery  as  an 
Indian  fighter.  Thence  he  went  to  Congress 
and  waa  named  candidate  with  Breckenridge 
in  that  four-sided  campaign  which  resulted  in 
the  election  of  Lincoln. 

Franklin  K.  Lane,  who  was  in  President  Wil- 
son's Cabinet,  was  born  in  Prince  Edward's 
Island,  and  was  not  apparently  of  any  kin- 
ship to  this  man.  This  last  was  here  during 
the  Great  War  and  spoke  before  the  State 
Literature  and  Historical  Association,  as  so 
many  celebrated  men  have  done. 

Speaking  of  the  next  celebrity  who  came  to 
Raleigh,  we  should  mention  the  "Little  Giant," 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who  had  beaten  Lincoln 
in  Illinois  when  elected  Senator  over  him,  but 
whose  candidacy  was  signalized  by  the  celebra- 
ted joint  debate  whereby  Lincoln  won  the  ears 
of  the  country.  Douglas  was  a  wonderful  ora- 
tor and  a  most  eminent  man,  and  was  one  of  the 
candidates  for  the  presidency  in  this  troubled 
transition  year.  Although  a  Western  man 
there  are  descendants  of  his  in  this  State  today. 
After  the  war  between  the  States  was  over, 
after  the  assassination  of  Lincoln  had  given 
Andrew  Johnson  a  seat  in  the  Presidential  chair, 


DISTINGUISHED    VISITORS  259 

this  son  of  Raleigh  came  back,  not  to  be  feast- 
ed and  toasted,  for  in  those  grim  depleted 
days  there  was  not  much  festivity  afoot,  but 
to  fulfil  the  filial  duty  of  seeing  a  monument 
erected  over  his  father's  grave. 

This  monument  stands  today  in  the  Old 
City  Cemetery,  and  the  visit  of  President 
Johnson  furnished  the  occasion  for  the  last  of 
those  historical  addresses  which  Governor 
Swain  wrote,  and  which  are  mines  of  informa- 
tion about  old  times.  This  is  the  one  in  which 
so  many  of  the  less  conspicuous  folk  were 
characterized,  as  he  gave  the  scanty  annals  of 
Jacob  Johnson,  the  hostler  at  Casso's  tavern, 
and  janitor  at  the  State  Bank  near  by. 

Mrs.  A.  B.  Andrews  has  described  her  visit 
in  company  with  her  father,  William  Johnston 
of  Charlotte,  to  the  White  House  during 
Johnson's  term,  when  her  father  removed  his 
political  disabilities  by  taking  the  necessary 
oath.  She  described  the  man  and  President, 
medium  in  height,  broad  and  stocky,  with  his 
neat  black  dress,  formal  and  somewhat  stiff  in 
manners  as  of  someone  not  too  sure  of  himself. 
He  spoke  to  her  of  her  name  having  the  same 
pronunciation  as  his  own,  but  spelled  differ- 


260  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

ently,  and  asked  her  from  what  part  of  North 
Carolina  she  came.  When  she  answered 
''Charlotte,"  he  said  In  so  many  words,  ''I  was 
born  In  Raleigh,  North  Carolina."  Johnson's 
troubles  grew  more  especially  out  of  the  kind- 
ness he  could  not  but  feel  for  the  land  of  his 
birth  and  for  his  leniency,  counted  too  great, 
in  those  bitter  times,  by  his  party. 

Our  next  Presidential  visitor  was  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  who  came  to  Raleigh  many  years 
later,  after  Reconstruction,  and  after  many 
years  of  wholesome  development  had  gone  by 
and  the  war  of  '61  and  its  troubles  had  receded 
into  that  past  time  which  will  heal  all  things 
— years  after  the  centennial  of  the  founding 
of  Raleigh  had  been  celebrated,  and  after  the 
twentieth  century  was  already  several  years 
old.  He  attended  the  State  Fair  in  1905, 
and  October  19th  of  that  year  found  the 
usual  fair-week  crowd  augmented agood  deal  by 
the  natural  curiosity  to  see  the  President,  then 
in  his  prime,  personally  and  politically,  and 
but  just  recently  elected  to  the  ofHce  he  held 
after  he  had  filled  out  McKInley's  unexpired 
term.  He  was  a  man  full  of  virile  force,  of  the 
true  joy  of  living,  and  with  a  hearty  word  and 


DISTINGUISHED    VISITORS  261 

flash  of  his  famous  teeth  in  a  smile  to  everyone 
who  came  to  greet  him. 

North  CaroHna  had  given  him  no  electoral 
vote,  but  she  loved  a  strong,  manly  personal- 
ity, a  real  man,  and  so  she  extended  the  warm- 
est welcome  she  was  capable  of  giving.  He 
came  in  over  the  Seaboard,  and  his  train  stood 
the  night  outside  the  town,  near  Millbrook, 
and  pulled  into  the  station  next  morning. 

Roosevelt  spent  the  whole  day  in  the  city, 
riding  in  the  procession  to  the  fair-grounds, 
making  his  address  there,  lunching  on  the 
grounds,  and  then  leaving  town  late  that  after- 
noon over  the  Southern  Railway.  In  reading 
over  the  reporters'  accounts  of  the  sayings  of 
the  President  on  this  occasion  we  are  struck 
by  the  genial  attitude  he  showed  to  life.  He 
noticed  the  children,  the  horses,  the  crowds, 
the  stir  and  the  life  of  the  occasion  as  though 
he  loved  it  all,  and  his  favorite  comment, 
*'Dehghted,"  won  the  hearts  of  those  who  were 
admitted  to  his  presence. 

The  plain  clothes  men,  who  had  charge  of 
his  personal  safety,  had  great  difliculty  in 
keeping  up  with  the  rapid  darting  way  in  which 


262  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

he  turned  In  every  direction  where  his  vivid 
interest  attracted  him. 

Roosevelt  was  here  again  as  private  citizen 
to  speak  on  the  subject  of  the  Panama  Caanl 
some  years  after,  and  addressed  a  record- 
breaking  crowd  in  the  Auditorium. 

Honorable  William  Jennings  Bryan  has 
been  in  Raleigh  several  times,  and  on  at  least 
three  occasions  was  a  speaker  invited.  His 
oratory  was  well  known  to  our  citizens. 
Later,  one  of  his  daughters  made  her  home 
here  for  a  time  and  her  noted  father  was  fre- 
quently seen  on  our  streets. 

In  the  year  1911,  Woodrow  Wilson,  soon  to 
become  Democratic  candidate  for  the  Presi- 
dency, came  to  Raleigh  after  the  Commence- 
ment at  the  University  where  he  made  a 
memorable  address.  He  was  entertained  by 
the  city  and  given  a  reception  by  the  Capital 
Club.  He  also  spoke  in  Raleigh  at  that  time, 
and  his  speech,  re-read  today,  gives  a  wonder- 
ful forecast  of  his  subjects  on  so  many  memor- 
able occasions  since,  recommending  so  many 
of  the  ideas  then  that  he  has  always  advocated 
since,  and  advanced  as  needed  reform  meas- 
ures.    Its    literary    form    is    wonderful.     He 


DISTINGUISHED    VISITORS  263 

mentioned  on  this  first  occasion  the  necessity 
of  young  men  espousing  particular  causes  and 
reforms,  not  as  connected  with  or  led  by  some 
particular  person,  but  as  fundamental  princi- 
ples appealing  to  the  eternal  sense  of  justice 
and  righteousness. 

The  two  Vice-Presidents,  Sherman  with 
Taft,  and  Marshall  with  Wilson,  were  also 
here  at  different  times  each  during  his  official 
term.  Mr.  Sherman,  in  a  letter  of  apprecia- 
tion of  a  reception  given  in  his  honor  in 
Raleigh,  wrote,  "It  was  a  broadening  of  my 
viewpoint  of  our  Southern  civilization  and  a 
w^arming  of  the  cockles  of  my  heart  towards  a 
people  that  I  had  not  before  so  well  known." 
Mr.  Marshall  made  one  of  the  most  genial, 
modest  and  common-sense  addresses  imagin- 
able, a  speech  full  of  kindly  toleration,  of 
ready  humor,  and  treating  of  the  pressing 
questions  of  the  day  in  that  broad  and  toler- 
ant spirit  in  which  alone  they  will  find  solution. 

After  mentioning  our  great  poHtical  and 
governmental  figures  well  known  to  history, 
we  must  not  omit  those  guests  whose  values 
as  they  came  to  us  were  a  little  different,  men 
w^ho  whatever  their  especial  gift,  came  to  us 


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DISTINGUISHED    VISITORS  265 

as  literary  lights,  men  who  were  brought  here 
to  speak  at  the  meetings  of  the  State  Literary 
and  Historical  Association. 

Edwin  Markham,  the  poet,  was  one  of  the 
earliest  of  these.  The  three  most  distin- 
guished addresses  were  delivered  in  the  year 
1909  by  James  Bryce,  Ambassador  from  Eng- 
land, 1911  by  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, and  in  1913  by  Jules  Jusserand, 
Ambassador  from.  France. 

Mr.  Bryce  is  the  author  of  the  best  book 
which  has  ever  been  written  on  the  workings 
of  the  American  Constitution.  He  was  one 
who  did  everything  in  his  power  to  cement  the 
friendship  of  the  two  great  powers  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  institutions.  He  was  a  small,  alert 
man,  with  dark  piercing  eyes  and  a  most  un- 
English  quickness  of  movement  and  appre- 
hension and  air  of  eager  interest.  His  speech 
was  very  rapid  and  perfectly  distinct,  and  was 
a  part  of  his  incisive  personality.  He  was 
in  these  days  of  almost  universal  clean  shav- 
ing, quite  forested  with  a  bush  of  white  beard, 
which  seemed  somehow  electric,  and  to  pro- 
vide him  with  wireless  tentacles  connecting 
with  the  outer  world. 


266  HISTORY   OF   WAKE    COUNTY 

Mr.  Bryce  has  left  behind  him  a  charming 
souvenir  of  his  visit,  for  at  his  request,  a  finely 
engraved,  autographed  portrait  of  King  Ed- 
ward VII  of  England  was  presented  to  the 
State  of  North  Carolina,  and  now  hangs  in 
the  Hall  of  History.  This  was  an  unusual 
courtesy,  for  the  King  seldom  gives  a  portrait 
of  himself,  and  did  so  this  time  in  recognition 
of  the  antiquity  of  North  Carolina,  the  oldest 
of  the  Thirteen,  and  thus  the  first  settlement 
England  made  in  America,  her  earliest  colony. 

Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  lost  also  in  a  thicket 
of  white  beard,  but  bearing  a  colder  eye,  with 
as  intellectual  an  outlook  on  the  world  as  Mr. 
Bryce  but  with  a  fine  New  England  conserva- 
tive attitude  toward  his  subject,  gave  us  a 
wonderfully  written  paper  on  the  constitu- 
tional development  of  the  United  States. 
This  address  forms  part  of  a  volume  which  he 
later  printed  on  kindred  subjects. 

The  French  Ambassador,  M.  Jusserand,  also 
bearded,  and  with  a  dark  scholarly  counten- 
ance, a  savant  as  well  as  a  diplomat  of  a  high 
type,  gave  from  original  French  sources  a  de- 
lightful account  of  the  friendliness  and  ideal 
conduct  of  the  French  and  American  troops 


DISTINGUISHED    VISITORS  267 

in  their  association  during  the  Revolution.  He 
quoted  Count  Rochambeau,  and  officers  with 
him  who  were  present  at  Yorktown  and  during 
all  the  the  glorious  episode  of  that  campaign. 
M.  Jusserand  was  complete  master  of  English 
as  a  written  medium,  but  in  his  reading  of  his 
address  many  were  a  little  confused  by  the 
persistence  of  his  accent.  William  Howard 
Taftwas  also  one  of  these  speakers,  during  his 
ex-president  life.  His  smile  and  chuckle 
were  in  fine  working  order. 

During  the  Great  War,  there  came  to  us 
many  French  visitors,  some,  such  as  M. 
Stephen  Lausanne,  sent  by  the  AlHance 
Francaise,  but  one  party  especially,  represent- 
ing the  French  High  Commission,  came  on  a 
most  interesting  errand  to  the  Southern  States. 

The  Marquis  de  Courtevron  and  the  Mar- 
quis de  Polignac,  with  their  wives,  one  of 
whom  was  an  American  lady,  were  making 
this  tour  by  reason  of  a  hereditary  connection. 
General,  the  Prince  de  Polignac  of  the  C.  S. 
Army,  was  the  father  of  the  A^Earquis  de  Cour- 
tevron and  the  uncle  of  the  Marquis  de  Polig- 
nac. The  older  gentleman  having  been  attach- 
ed to  the  Southern  Armies  during  the  War  of 


268  HISTORY    OF   WAKE    COUNTY 

'61,  and  having  thus  made  bonds  of  affection 
which  had  not  been  forgotten,  his  sons  were 
come  to  renew  the  association.  These  gentle- 
men and  ladles  were  our  most  charming  and 
memorable  French  visitors,  and  the  so  admir- 
able spirit  of  war-time  France  was  well  rep- 
resented by  them. 

General  Tyson  of  the  United  States  Army 
spoke  at  the  Literary  and  Historical  Associa- 
tion of  1919,  giving  a  first  hand  account  of  the 
glorious  history  of  the  breaking  of  the  Hinden- 
burg  Line,  accomplished  by  our  Thirtieth 
Division,  first  and  bravest. 

Dorothea  DIx  was  a  visitor  to  us  more  than 
once  in  her  beneficent  journeys,  and  one  is  re- 
minded of  her  in  rounding  out  the  list  of  our 
guests  and  our  honored  speakers. 

We  must  not  omit  the  mention  of  another 
woman  of  real  significance,  greater  than  any- 
one can  now  determine.  That  she  was  a 
woman,  makes  the  significance  all  the  greater. 
Dr.  Anna  Howard  Shaw,  the  champion  of 
equal  suffrage  for  women,  the  sane  wholesome 
magnetic  woman  who  carried  the  banner  all 
down  the  years  to  assured  if  not  to  actual 
victory,  came  here  and  spoke  in  the  Commons 


DISTINGUISHED    VISITORS  269 

Hall,  before  the  Legislature.  She  probably 
represented,  in  her  pioneer  capacity,  more  in- 
fluence on  the  coming  development  of  the 
world  than  any  man  of  them  all.  Her  sweet 
reasonableness,  her  intellectual  power,  her 
gift  of  real  oratory,  which  made  men  say  of 
her  that  of  all  speakers  who  ever  came  to  us, 
she  was  the  greatest,  all  these  things  should  be 
recorded  of  her. 

She  was  elderly,  rather  stout,  with  a  massive 
face  which  lighted  up  into  an  indescribable 
inspired  look,  and  a  voice  when  she  spoke 
which,  while  utterly  womanly,  had  the  search- 
ing power  that  filled  a  hall,  and  tones  and 
echoes  of  sweetness  that  made  the  hearing  an 
unique  experience.  It  was  as  though  she 
played  on  a  wonderful  musical  instrument 
with  rare  skill. 

A  woman  fair-time  orator  was  Miss  Jeanette 
Rankin,  Representative  from  Alontana,  who 
spoke  here  during  her  term  of  office.  She  was 
a  phenomenon,  rather  than  an  event,  but  she 
should  be  recorded.  She  was  later  killed, 
politically,  by  the  report  that  she  wept  as  she 
voted  ''no"  to  the  Declaration  of  War,  which 
was   a  ruse,   rather  than   a   true  tale.     Miss 


270  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

Rankin  was  a  tall,  self-possessed  Western 
woman  who  spoke  well,  to  the  gaping  wonder- 
ment of  many  a  farmer  who  did  not  hold  with 
these  "new  fangled  women-folks." 

Long  years  after  the  war  was  over,  and  years 
after  his  summons  to  the  eternal  rest,  the  ashes 
of  Jefferson  Davis,  President  of  the  Confed- 
eracy, were  borne  in  state,  from  his  far  South- 
ern interment  near  Beauvoir,  Miss.,  to  a  more 
glorious  repose  in  his  former  Capital  at  Rich- 
mond, Virginia. 

During  this  solenm  progress  the  remains 
were  halted  to  lie  in  state  in  the  different 
states  which  had  owned  his  command  during 
that  struggle.  On  30th  May,  1893,  the  coffin 
was  placed  in  the  Rotunda  of  our  Capitol, 
there  to  be  visited  and  venerated  by  those 
who  loved  and  remembered  him  and  the  cause 
he  represented. 

All  in  this  list,  and  many  more,  have  breath- 
ed our  air,  trod  our  soil,  become  part  of  us  for 
the  time  they  remained  with  us,  and  brought 
to  us  what  they  had  of  value  and  of  informa- 
tion and  inspiration  to  bring. 

In  other  lands,  when  we  are  shown  a  castle 
or  a  palace,  the  distinguished  guests,  the  visit- 


DISTINGUISHED    VISITORS  271 

ing  sovereigns  are  enumerated,  and  by  having 
been  there  they  add  interest  and  prestige  to 
the  house.  So  also  should  it  be  with  a  city, 
and  we  should  count  it  a  glory  to  have  enter- 
tained so  many  visitors  who  are  well  known 
for  all  sorts  of  honor  and  attainment. 


CHAPTER  XII 
These  Later  Days 

HERE  is  a  development  and  a  life 
story  to  a  nation  as  well  as  to  an 
individual,  and  as  the  noisy 
and  spacious  times  of  the  fifties 
could  only  be  likened  to  a  young 
man's  exuberant  youth,  so  after  the  Civil 
War  and  its  subsequent  problems  had  sobered 
our  people  in  the  sixties  and  early  seventies, 
and  cramped  their  attention  down  to  the  stern 
practicalities  of  life,  and  as  further  lapse  of 
time  confirmed  'this  attitude,  we  may  be  said 
to  have  thus  entered  on  our  maturer  man- 
hood, speaking  always  of  a  nation  as  if  it  were 
an  individual. 

Young  folk  are  seldom  concerned  about 
what  has  gone  before  them.  It  is  not  until 
time  has  ripened  their  conceptions  that  they 
want  to  study  history,  look  up  genealogy,  and 
reconstruct  the  lives  of  their  forefathers. 
The  very  young  seldom  occupy  themselves 
with  old  folk's  tales.  It  is  so  with  individuals ; 
it  is  true  of  comxmonwealths;  and  it  has  been 

[272] 


THESE    LATER    DAYS  273 

that  way  generally  in  North  Carolina.  It  is 
a  rare  and  an  unusual  mind  in  the  past  which 
has  really  wished  to  grope  backward.  When 
WilHani  L.  Saunders  began  the  research  which 
produced  the  Colonial  Records  on  that  tiny 
first  appropriation  of  five  hundred  dollars,  he 
was  still  well  in  advance  of  the  sentiment  of 
his  age.  Only  in  the  last  fifty  years  have  wq 
faintly  begun  to  insist  upon  building  up  a  true 
picture  of  the  influences  which  have  wrought 
changes  in  our  economic  habits.  For  about 
the  sam.e  period  we  have  begun  to  predict  the 
development  of  the  future  in  a  serious  mood. 

Leafing  the  pages  of  ''before  the  war" 
old  periodicals  one  finds  notices  of  m^any 
beginnings  of  manufacturing  in  North  Car- 
olina, beside  the  home  spinning,  weaving  and 
dyeing,  and  the  making  of  the  various  articles 
needed  in  a  simple  rural  society. 

Quilts  and  spreads  were  an  outlet  to  the  art- 
istry and  love  of  color  of  women  at  the  South^ 
as  every  where  in  the  United  States,  in  the  days 
when  homemade  carpets  and  simple  furnishings 
were  the  rule.  These  womanly  arts  were  well 
exemplified  in  weaving  the  coverlids  which  are 
made  by  old  patterns  brought  from  overseas, 


274  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

and  handed  down  from  mother  to  daughter. 
These  were  very  intricate  and  beautiful,  and 
the  yarn  was  homespun  cotton  and  wool  mix- 
ed, and  home-dyed  as  well.  Usually  the  wool 
used  in  them  was  colored  and  the  cotton  left 
uncolored,  and  many  of  these  are  treasured 
today,  among  the  antiques  most  prized. 
Homespun  cloth  for  men's  clothing  was  dyed 
w4th  vegetable  dyes  in  such  a  manner  that 
the  colors  never  really  faded,  but  only  soften- 
ed into  more  subdued  tints.  A  wonderful 
indigo,  a  good  brown,  a  yellow  and  a  soft 
grey  were  among  the  best  colors,  while  the 
bright  red  and  the  black  were  brought  in  if  any 
was  used. 

Blacksmithing  was  rough,  but  the  shoe- 
making  was  wonderfully  fine.  This  was  taught 
to  slaves,  as  was  also  expert  carpentry,  and 
other  building  trades.  Some  of  the  wooden 
mouldings  that  occur,  and  some  of  the  plaster 
modeUng  which  centers  and  edges  the  cornice 
of  many  old  houses  which  have  been  care- 
fully used,  show  the  taste  of  the  old  folk 
and  capabilities  of  the  negroes  as  well  as  do 
their  furniture  and  silverware. 

There  were  wool  hats  made  at  some  farms 
in  Wake  County,  and  brought  in  for  sale  dur- 


THESE    LATER   DAYS  275 

ing  court  week,  so  that  they  were  called 
''County  Court  Hats."  This  is,  of  course,  a 
lost  art,  along  with  the  greater  part  of  the 
other  handicraft  and  basketry  which  is  reviv- 
ed and  treasured  nowadays. 

Candle  moulds  and  snuffer  trays  are  interest- 
ing features  of  every  museum  of  antiquity, 
and  the  sewing,  when  machines  were  still  un- 
known, was  exquisite. 

Cotton  was  raised  in  quantity  after  the  in- 
vention of  the  cotton  gin,  and  early  the  idea 
suggested  itself  that  it  might  be  manufactured 
at  home  without  the  costly  transportation  of 
raw  material  out,  and  of  manufactured  goods 
back  into  the  States.  Many  small  mills  are 
to  be  noticed  in  the  forties,  and  we  find  stated 
in  journals  of  the  time  that  there  were  in 
North  Carolina  in  that  day  the  quite  respect- 
able number  of  twenty-five  cotton  factories, 
employing  fifty  thousand  spindles  and  con- 
suming fifteen  thousand  bales  of  cotton 
yearly. 

None  of  these  factories  were  in  Wake 
County  however.  Gins  there  were,  of  course, 
run  at  first  by  horse-power,  and  also  the  old- 
fashioned  horse-driven  cotton  presses,  which 


276  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

were  often  flanked  with  a  heap  of  cotton  seed 
left  to  rot  unused.  Not  always  so,  however,  in 
Wake  County. 

There  was  over  near  Rolesville,  on  Neuse 
River,  quite  early  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
one  infant  industry  which  was  far  ahead  of  its 
time.  Several  citizens  of  Wake  County  have 
recently  given  accounts  of  a  cotton  seed  oil 
mill  there  which  pressed  ten  gallons  of  oil  in  a 
day,  and  produced  much  oil-cake,  in  great 
cheese  shaped  masses,  as  if  taken  from  some- 
thing Hke  a  cider-press.  This  oil-cake  was 
was  fed  to  milch  cows  and  considered  fine  to 
increase  their  milk,  while  the  oil  is  vaguely 
stated  to  have  been  "taken  to  Raleigh." 
What  use  it  was  put  to  there  they  did  not 
know.     To  dilute  linseed  oil,  probably. 

A  few  pianos  were  made  in  Raleigh  before  the 
war  by  a  man  named  Whitaker,  and  were  very 
good  ones  too,  by  the  standards  of  the  time. 

The  works  were  imported,  and  the  cases 
were  made  and  mechanical  parts  installed  and 
adjusted  here.  One  or  two  of  these  instruments 
are  still  in  existence  to  show  their  excellence. 

This  is  not  a  matter  of  great  importance  in 
the  real  progress  of  the  city,  but  is  told  simply 
to  show  that  the  tide  was  turning  toward  the 


THESE    LATER    DAYS  277 

making  of  things  before  the  coming  of  the  war 
made  necessary  the  manufacturing  of  articles 
for  subsistence. 

There  were  formerly  two  successful  paper 
mills  in  Wake  County.  The  first  one  was  at 
Milburnie,  and  was  where  a  small  stream  came 
into  the  main  stream  of  the  Neuse,  because 
clear  water  is  necessary  for  making  paper. 
This  first  one  was  started  by  Joseph  Gales,  the 
editor,  for  supplying  his  printing  paper,  and 
was  burned  before  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  The  other  was  owned  later  at 
Falls  of  Neuse,  by  the  father  of  Dr.  W.  I.  Roy- 
sterand  his  brothers,  and  was  dismantled  when 
Sherman's  army  was  near,  and  the  machinery 
was  hidden  and  saved.  It  is  this  massive 
stone  building  that  is  today  the  major  part  of 
the  Neuse  River  Cotton  Mill. 

The  inhabitants  of  Wake  County  before  the 
war  were,  nevertheless  a  most  exclusively  agri- 
cultural society  and  did  not  use  very  advanced 
methods.  They  had  felt  the  lure  of  the  West 
in  those  days  that  swept  out  the  younger, 
more  adventurous  men,  and  the  remaining 
ones  were  not  the  eager  spirits.  Good  farmers 
there  were,  for  as  someone  has  said,  there  was 


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THESE    LATER    DAYS  279 

no  need  for  a  good  farmer  to  move  West.  But 
the  pristine  fertility  of  virgin  land  was  used 
up  by  the  customary  methods  of  exhaustion. 
The  new  ground  was  cropped  and  turned  out 
as  old  field,  to  become  a  prey  to  gully-wash- 
ing rains,  or  grow  up  in  old  field  pine  if  circum- 
stances were  fortunate.  New  fields  were  con- 
stantly cleared,  and  this  was  the  wasteful 
method  all  over  the  American  continent  at 
some  stage  of  its  development,  before  the 
need  of  conserving  fertility  was  regarded. 

The  long-leaved  pines  of  the  south-eastern 
portion  of  the  county  were  soon  stripped  by 
turpentine  seekers  and  lumbermen,  while  the 
hogs  running  out  kept  the  young  trees  from 
sprouting  up.  Fear  of  deep  plowing  was  held 
as  a  steadfast  belief  by  farmers  who  had 
brought  these  ideas  with  them  from  the  sandy 
country. 

We  will  have  to  accord  to  the  women  a  good 
part  of  the  sudden  awakening  to  possibilities 
of  manufacture  which  came  later  in  1861. 
During  the  War,  the  city  and  county  became 
a  real  hive  of  industry.  The  socks  which  were 
knitted  for  the  army  by  the  good  women  every 
where  were  a  case  in  point.     Even  so  late  as 


280  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

the  World  War,  when  distributions  were  made 
of  wool  for  the  Red  Cross  knitting,  there  were 
found,  all  over  the  country,  old  ladies  who 
knew  exactly  what  to  do  with  their  knitting 
needles,  who  rejoiced  that  they  could  help 
in  their  old  age. 

After  they  were  taught  the  "Kitchener 
Toe,"  and  had  been  instructed  in  size  of 
needles,  and  number  of  stitches  to  cast  on, 
they  industriously  turned  out  socks  by  the 
dozen  pair.  These  old  ladies  would  reminisce, 
and  tell  of  the  sewing  they  had  done  for  the 
soldiers  in  their  youth,  when  cut-out  garments 
were  brought  to  them  from  Raleigh.  Some 
had  made  up  the  cloth  for  love,  and  some  had 
been  obliged  to  ask  for  a  little  money.  All 
had  had  their  part  in  the  efficient  organization 
of  industry  at  that  time. 

Powder  was  made  near  Raleigh  during  the 
War  and  guncaps  were  manufactured  by  Keu- 
ster  and  Smithurst.  Cartridges  were  filled  by 
the  children  at  the  blind  institution,  by  the  deaf 
and  dumb,  and  the  blind  also,  who  could  thus 
do  their  bit.  Matches  and  curry  combs, 
wooden  saddle  trees,  and  metal  findings  such 
as  spurs,  belt  buckles,  and  other  things  which 


THESE    LATER    DAYS  281 

could  be  stamped  out,  employed  the  hands  of 
women  and  boys  and  some  spare  negroes. 
*'John  Brown  Pikes,"  those  unique  weapons, 
were  made  here  also. 

Wooden  shoes  which  could  be  worn  by  the 
home  folk,  and  thus  saved  the  much  needed 
leather  for  the  use  of  the  army,  were  also  made 
in  Raleigh  and  are  remembered  as  having 
been  used  by  some  of  the  wearers  of  this 
clumsy  footgear. 

When  the  old  Devereux  house  was  pulled 
down  some  years  since  to  make  way  for  the 
development  of  Glenwood,  two  bolts  of  cotton 
cloth  were  found  under  the  roof,  hidden  and 
forgotten.  One  of  these  may  be  seen  in  the  Hall 
of  History,  and  while  not  woven  in  Raleigh, 
it  was  made  in  the  State  during  the  War. 

Thus  the  necessities  of  the  conflict  develop- 
ed the  hands  and  skill  of  both  men  and  women, 
and  the  people  who  had  hitherto  subsisted  by 
agriculture  alone,  found  out  that  if  an  incen- 
tive were  given,  compelling  toward  making  a 
start,  they  were  capable  of  making  many  need- 
ed things,  and  could  become  skilled  workmen 
in  the  doing  of  it. 


282  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

The  Reconstruction  period  was  a  sad  and 
exasperatng  interlude,  and  trailed  its  discour- 
agement across  a  land  where  there  was  not 
much  beauty  or  thrift  remaining  visible  to 
the  traveler  over  country  roads,  deep  in  mid- 
summer dust  or  winter  mud;  but  after  the 
citizens  of  North  Carolina  who  had  the  right, 
resumed  the  direction  of  affairs,  there  was 
found  a  good  deal  to  build  upon.  This  was 
not  in  material  resources,  for  these  were  as 
depleted  as  it  is  possible  to  imagine,  but  in 
ideals,  and  in  interest  in  several  things  pre- 
viously carried  on  with  success  and  efficiency. 

The  winter  of  discontent  forebodes  the 
promise  of  spring.  Agriculture,  as  soon  as  the 
War  was  fairly  over,  made  some  beginning  at 
improvement,  and  the  high  price  of  cotton 
induced  farmers  to  raise  all  they  could  culti- 
vate. I  have  been  told  of  a  farmer-boy  near 
Raleigh  who  had  by  some  means  raised  a  fine 
colt  for  himself.  When  Sherman's  men  ap- 
peared they  appropriated  the  animal.  As 
they  led  it  away  the  boy  followed,  and  duly 
turned  up  at  headquarters  asking  payment 
for  his  property.  He  was  told  that  he  might 
have  as  many  of  the  old  broken-down  army 


THESE    LATER    DAYS  283 

mules  which  he  was  shown  in  a  vacant  lot,  as 
he  thought  his  horse  was  worth.  Seeing  here 
an  opportunity,  he  took  away  a  string  of 
twenty  of  the  least  disabled  ones,  and  by 
means  of  this  foresight  had  mules  to  cultivate 
a  large  crop  of  cotton  that  summer,  and  sell- 
ing at  the  high  price  of  the  first  year  after  the 
War  he  thus  made  his  start. 

Mr.  Priestley  Mangum,  a  farmer  of  Wake 
County,  finding  that  the  washing  out  of  gul- 
lies and  the  channelling  out  of  the  fields  on 
his  farm  made  so  great  a  loss  of  surface  soil 
and  fertility  as  to  reduce  his  yield  permanently, 
attained  one  of  those  visions  of  simple  ex- 
pedients which,  although  they  may  seem  very 
plain  to  "hind-sight,"  have  never  been  thought 
out  before.  He  found  that  by  throwing  up 
ridges  which  followed  the  contour  of  the  hill- 
side, and  at  the  same  time  maintained  a  slight 
but  continuous  fall  of  level,  he  could  thus  con- 
trol the  water  in  its  course,  allowing  it  to  drain 
away  slowly,  and  sink  into  the  soil  on  its  way. 
These  ridges,  arranged  at  intervals  on  his  hilly 
fields,  obviated  washing,  conserved  moisture, 
and  did  not  interfere  with  customary  cultiva- 
tion. 


THESE    LATER    DAYS  285 

In  a  hilly  country  it  had  long  been  the  cus- 
tom to  run  the  furrows  horizontally  around  the 
hill-sides,  but  a  field  cultivated  after  Mr. 
Mangum's  plan  had  attained  the  same  object 
more  perfectly  by  its  regular  terraces  made  by 
throwing  up  a  very  high  ridge  beside  a  deep 
furrow  and  then  smoothing  it  into  shape  with 
a  sort  of  wooden  scraper  after  the  soil  was  thus 
heaped  up.  It  was  a  simple  expedient  never 
thought  of  before. 

The  first  Professor  of  Agriculture  at  the 
"State  College,"  seeing  the  condition  and  the 
necessity,  showed  how  the  labor  of  thro^wing 
up  these  terraces  could  be  lessened  by  turning 
several  furrows  together  to  form  the  neces- 
sary ridge  by  means  of  the  plow.  So  when- 
ever the  terraces  curl  around  the  hillsides,  and 
the  crops  grow  greener  upon  the  ridges  where 
the  soil  is  stirred  deeper  and  is  better  drained, 
we  see  a  real  contribution  made  to  economics 
by  a  plain  man  who  used  his  wits  to  meet  his 
daily  problems.  This  simple  plan  has  been  of 
untold  benefit,  not  only  in  Wake  County  where 
it  originated,  but  also  has  meant  millions  to 
the  whole  red-clay  country  of  the  Piedmont 
South. 


286  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

After  the  first  spurt  toward  improvement, 
there  supervened  a  long  period  of  depression. 
Cotton  went  down  in  price  year  by  year.  The 
remaining  lumber  was  cut  down  to  the  bare 
soil  as  never  before.  Wake  County  had  not 
made  any  good  beginning  at  restoration  for 
many  years  after  the  War. 

In  Raleigh  there  was  a  certain  sum  of  money 
which  must  be  regularly  spent  there  because 
it  was  the  Capital;  but  as  Wake  County  was 
neither  rich  nor  level,  and  as  its  varieties  in 
soil  made  it  hard  to  manage,  because  what 
succeeded  on  one  farm  might  not  suit  on  an- 
other, a  good  farmer  could  just  make  a  living, 
and  a  poor  one  went  ever  deeper  in  the  mire. 

Another  time  of  emigration  began,  not  so 
much  from  the  elder  folk,  or  from  the  farms, 
but  from  the  ranks  of  bright  young  men,  who 
could  go  anywhere  where  larger  rewards  were 
to  be  found  for  their  labor. 

It  was  during  these  pinching  times  that 
there  grew  up  at  Cary,  nine  miles  from 
Raleigh,  one  of  our  most  distinguished  North 
Carolinians,  one  who  has  not  yet  fully  come 
into  his  deserved  fame.  This  was  Walter 
Page,  born  of  a  Wake  County  family,  which 


THESE    LATER    DAYS  287 

had  been  here  since  early  years,  one  of  a  num- 
ber of  brothers,  all  men  more  than  ordinary 
in  ability,  and  recognized  by  them  as  being 
the  ablest  of  them  all. 

They  agreed  to  give  him  the  college  educa- 
tion which  they  did  not  all  feel  free  to  take  in 
this  struggling  time  with  fortunes  to  make. 

This  Walter  Page  found  his  mind  busy  with 
the  problems  of  the  country  he  loved,  where 
his  fathers  had  lived  for  generations. 

He  wondered  why  it  was  that  men  of  good 
minds  and  good  characters,  living  under  a  de- 
lightful climate,  and  with  no  worse  soil  than 
was  cultivated  to  advantage  in  many  other 
places,  could  exist  with  so  little  of  hope  and  en- 
couragement that  life  was  but  a  servitude  to 
the  average  farmer.  He  could  see  the  great 
need  of  some  change.  His  first  business  ven- 
ture, in  the  eighties,  was  the  publication  of  a 
weekly  newspaper  in  Raleigh.  Although  this 
did  not  turn  out  a  financial  success,  yet  it 
sowed  much  seed  which  has  since  come  to 
fruition.  A  circle  of  young  men  in  Raleigh, 
himself  among  them,  talked  over  at  length 
this  feeling  of  futility,  this  lack  of  real  progress 
in  Wake  County  and  outside.     They  found  a 


288  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

lack  of  specific  information  as  to  real  condi- 
tions and  actual  needs  of  the  Southern  country, 
an  uncertainty  as  to  the  economic  questions 
of  southern  life,  to  be  one  of  the  great  defects 
of  the  era.  The  old  formulas  did  not  fit  the 
new  times.  This  coterie,  this  debating  society 
of  young  men,  not  only  discussed  problems, 
but  decided  upon  the  remedy  to  suggest. 

It  is  declared  by  those  who  watched  the 
signs  of  the  times  in  these  early  eighties,  that 
never,  until  the  Watauga  Club  and  the  State 
Chronicle  put  it  there,  was  the  phrase  ''indus- 
trial education"  ever  set  up  in  type  in  North 
Carolina. 

This  Watauga  Club,  of  which  Walter  Page 
was  one  of  the  leading  spirits,  decided  that 
there  should  be  an  industrial  school  where 
boys  could  receive  a  thorough  A^ocational 
training,  fitting  them  for  the  task  of  subduing 
material,  whether  it  be  wood,  or  metal  or  re- 
fractory soil,  and  making  it  serve  man's  needs. 
They  talked  the  matter  over  thoroughly,  and 
decided  to  memorialize  the  Legislature  in  be- 
half of  such  an  institution. 

The  farmers  of  the  State  were  prompt  to 
recognize  that  here  was  an  opportunity. 


THESE    LATER    DAYS  289 

Under  the  leadership  of  EHas  Carr,  of  Edge- 
combe, afterwards  Governor,  and  of  L.  L. 
Polk,  the  editor  of  the  Progressive  Fanner^ 
they  favored  the  idea  but  wished  to  have  it 
carried  further. 

They  wanted  the  Land  Scrip  funds,  which 
came  from  the  Federal  Government  and  which 
were  used  in  an  irrelevant  manner  by  the  Uni- 
versity, to  be  added  to  the  endowment  al- 
ready provided  by  the  fertilizer  tax. 

Private  subscription,  a  State  contribution 
of  part  of  the  Camp  Mangum  tract  to  the  west 
of  town,  and  the  generous  donation  of  sixty 
acres  adjoining  to  Pullen  Park,  given  by  Mr. 
Stanhope  Pullen  for  a  site,  were  assembled  as 
the  assets  of  the  new  institution,  after  its  in- 
corporation was  enacted.  To  this  the  Land 
Scrip  was  a  substantial  addition. 

It  is  an  interesting  item  in  connection  with 
the  expanded  idea  of  the  Watauga  Club,  that 
both  Wake  Forest  and  Davidson  Colleges 
were  first  started  as  industrial  schools  and  as 
soon  were  augmented  into  real  colleges. 

The  first  building  erected  at  the  Agricultural 
and  Mechanical  College,  as  its  official  title 
was  first  bestowed,  was  finished  by  Peniten- 


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THESE    LATER    DAYS  291 

tiary  labor,  and  the  institution  was  opened  In 
1890.  It  was  first  of  all  a  place  where  our 
boys  could  be  taught  to  win  a  good  livelihood 
by  some  creative  work. 

In  the  same  year  was  first  felt  the  stirring 
of  the  Impulse  toward  a  beginning  of  manu- 
factures, and  money  was  subscribed  to  build 
cotton  mills,  and  after  that  a  fertilizer  factory. 
It  seems  a  long  time  that  affairs  had  been  stag- 
nant before  the  changes  began  to  come,  but 
when  once  Initiated,  development  has  been 
steady  and  much  has  been  accomplished. 
There  Is  as  yet  no  stoppage  of  this  steady  de- 
velopment, and  It  has  brought  about  a  wonder- 
ful alteration  In  the  look  of  things.  Here  and 
there  Is  a  farm  run  so  efficiently  as  to  be  really 
making  the  best  of  all  conditions,  while  the 
whole  general  practice  of  farming  has  Im- 
proved  wonderfully. 

The  coming  of  Rural  Free  Delivery  has 
been  a  great  aid  to  the  farmer  who  was  suffi- 
ciently educated  to  use  the  help  lavished  up- 
on him  so  freely  by  the  Federal  and  State 
Departments  of  Agriculture. 

Formerly  a  farmer  had  to  go  to  Raleigh  once 
a  week,   seldom  oftener,   and  would  get   his 


292  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

mail.  It  was  the  exception  if  he  took  a  paper. 
Now  and  then  a  letter  or  a  patent  medicine 
circular  was  about  all  he  ever  expected.  He 
might  hear  the  news  of  the  day  as  he  stood 
about  the  streets,  and  might  return  with  a 
feeling  of  the  existence  of  a  world  outside,  but 
his  wife  and  children  got  none  of  this.  Life 
was  stagnant  of  interest  for  them.  There  was 
now  a  wholesome  change. 

Newspapers  and  magazines  became  more 
plentiful,  and  farmers  could  read  something 
that  was  of  special  interest  to  their  rural  life. 
Now  and  then  a  boy  would  insist  on  going  to 
the  Agricultural  College,  and  contrary  to  the 
predictions  of  the  older  folk,  book  farming  was 
found  not  so  unsuccessful  after  all. 

Factories  were  built  in  the  good  old  North 
Carolina  fashion  of  placing  them  in  country 
surroundings,  with  rows  of  comfortable  houses, 
very  much  more  livable,  one  would  think,  than 
the  loneliness  of  the  one-horse  farms  whence 
their  workers  were  recruited.  These  factory 
suburbs,  with  pleasant  gardens  to  each  little 
home,  are  seen  on  several  sides  of  Raleigh. 

The  spread  of  the  plant  of  the  State  College 
over  the  hills  to  the  west  goes  on;  a  new  build- 


THESE    LATER    DAYS  293 

ing  or  so  breaks  Into  the  skyline  every  year 
as  the  boys  keep  coming;  while  the  well  culti- 
vated acres  of  the  College  Farm  extend  fur- 
ther, and  the  big  cattle  barns  are  almost  at 
Method.  Here  we  see  another  outpost  of 
Raleigh. 

In  the  town  proper,  inside  the  city  limits, 
the  two  older  schools  for  girls,  Saint  Mary's 
and  Peace,  with  the  newer  Meredith  College 
(Baptist),  bigger  and  more  advanced  in  stand- 
ard than  either,  make  the  school  population  of 
Raleigh  amount  to  thousands  of  young  folk 
each  winter. 

The  State  offices  are  growing  greater  each 
year  as  the  social  service  side  of  the  govern- 
ment reaches  out  more  and  more  In  influence 
for  good  each  year.  We  have  had  the  State 
Hospital  for  the  Insane,  and  the  institutions 
for  the  blind,  and  for  the  colored  deaf, 
dumb  and  blind,  for  many  years.  There  are 
two  colored  schools  for  higher  education,  sup- 
ported by  Northern  capital,  and  there  Is  at 
Method  a  village  of  negroes  and  also  an  indus- 
trial school  for  the  colored  race,  both  founded 
by  the  generosity  of  one  of  their  own  people, 
a  man  of  means. 


294  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

This  city  of  Raleigh  while  it  is  not  yet  an 
overgrown,  swollen  metropolis,  is  as  pretty 
and  as  pleasant  looking,  as  busy  and  hopeful 
a  place  today  as  any  city  of  its  size  in  the 
United  States. 

Its  people  are  the  same  that  they  ever  have 
been.  Newcomers  are  made  welcome  to  follow 
our  own  ways.  The  homogeneity  of  society 
in  this  city  makes  for  the  kindliest  feeling 
between  all  classes,  and  it  is  a  town  of  homes, 
of  moderate  fortunes,  and  of  many  children. 

As  you  ride  out  on  any  of  these  thirteen 
great  highways  that  extend  in  every  direction 
like  the  spokes  of  a  wheel,  you  find  yourself  in 
a  smiling  country.  One  can  ride  for  hundreds 
of  miles  over  the  good  roads  of  Wake  County 
without  repeating  a  single  mile. 

Of  the  smaller  towns  which  girdle  the  Coun- 
ty round,  there  is  Cary,  birthplace  of  the 
Pages,  a  small  town  before  the  War;  Apex 
seven  miles  further,  which  was  also  a  small 
village  until  the  railroads  made  it  a  good  sized 
country  town;  Garner  grown  up  on  the  South- 
ern Railroad,  as  Apex  on  the  Seaboard; 
Zebulon  and  Wendell,  sister  towns  with  their 
great   rural  High   School   buildings   standing 


THESE    LATER    DAYS  295 

half  way  between  them,  and  their  streets  of 
pleasant  homes,  none  over  twenty  years  old. 

Wake  Forest  has  been  a  town  since  1833, 
when  Wake  Forest  College  began  its  benefi- 
cent career,  and  now  it  has  beside  the  college, 
its  own  cotton  factory,  in  its  own  country 
suburb. 

Other  places  have  their  factories  and  schools 
also.  Rolesville  has  not  had  a  railroad  to 
build  her  up,  and  while  perhaps  the  oldest 
community  outside  Raleigh,  has  not  increased 
since  the  War.  Fuquay  Springs,  where  mineral 
water  attracted  people  for  health,  has  become 
a  good  tobacco  market,  and  has  grown  rapidly 
since  the  railroad  came,  while  the  water  re- 
mains as  good  as  ever.  They,  too,  have  their 
school  building,  as  has  Holly  Springs.  In 
Cary  the  Rural  Life  High  School  dominates 
the  town  as  is  fitting  in  Walter  Page's  old 
home. 

With  churches  and  schools  and  farms  and 
factories,  and  descendants  of  those  good  old 
families  who  came  here  to  build  our  first  civili- 
zation, and  with  those  like-minded  who  have 
come  in  to  help  them  and  continue  it,  this 
County  of  Wake  is  a  most  pleasant,  whole- 
some place  in  which  to  live. 


296  HISTORY    OF    WAKE    COUNTY 

As  one  young  person  who  was  forced  to 
move  away  from  the  old  town  of  Raleigh  quite 
unwillingly  was  heard  to  say,  '^Don't  you 
know  that  the  finest  people  in  the  whole  world 
live  right  here  in  Raleigh?"  And  this  world 
is  made  up  of  folks  far  more  than  it  is  made  up 
of  acres,  or  of  climate  or  of  resources  or  of 
dollars. 

Given  the  right  folks,  a  place  can  be  as 
worth-while  as  one  pleases. 


North  Carolina  Society  of  the  Colonial 
Dames  of  America 

Wake  County  Committee 


Chairmen 
Mrs.  Spier  Whitaker 
Mrs.  Elvira  Worth  Moffitt 
Mrs.  Alexander  Boyd  Andrews 
Mrs.  Franklin  McNeill 
Mrs.  William  Johnston  Andrews 

Secretaries 
Mrs.  Harry  Loeb 
Mrs.  James  J.  Thomas 
Mrs.  Joseph  Redington  Chamberlain 

Assistant  Secretary 
Miss  Martha  Hawkins  Bailey 

Treasurers 
Mrs.  Harry  Loeb 
Mrs.  J.  J.  Thomas 
Mrs.  S.  W.  Brewer 

Custodian  of  House  in  which  President 
Andrew  Johnson  was  Born 
Mrs.  S.  W.  Brewer 

[297] 


298  WAKE    COUNTY    COMMITTEE 

Mrs.  John  Anderson 

(Lucy  Worth  London) 

*Mrs.  Alexander  Boyd  Andrews 

(Julia  Martha  Johnston) 

♦Mrs.  Alexander  Boyd  Andrews,  Jr. 

(Helen  May  Sharpies) 

Mrs.  Willl^m  Johnston  Andrews 

(Augusta  Webb  Ford) 

§Mrs.  William  H.  Bagley 

(Adelaide  Ann  Worth) 

Miss  Martha  Hawkins  Bailey 
Mrs.  Thomas  Walter  Bickett 

(Fannie  Yarborough) 

Mrs.  Samuel  Waite  Brewer 

(Bessie  Sarissa  Felt) 

Mrs.  Richard  S.  Busbee 

(Margaret  Simons  Clarkson) 

♦Mrs.  Baldy  A.  Cape  hart 

(Lucy  Catherine  Moore) 

Mrs.  Joseph  Redington  Chamberlain 

(Hope  Summerell) 

♦Mrs.  Walter  Clark 

(Susan  Washington  Graham) 
Mrs.  W.  a.  Graham  Clark 

(Pearl  Chadwick  Heck) 

Mrs.  Collier  Cobb 

(Mary  Knox  Gatlin) 


*Deceased 

§  Transferred  to  other  Committees 


WAKE    COUNTY    COMMITTEE  299 

Mrs.  J.  S.  Cobb 

(Jane  Williams) 

Mrs.  James  H.  Gordon 

(Betsey  Louise  London) 

Mrs.  Josephus  Daniels 

(Addie  Worth  Bagley) 

Miss  Sallie  Dortch 
Mrs.  George  Dix 

(Janet  Dortch) 

Mrs.  David  I.  Fort 

(Elizabeth  Robinson) 

§Mrs.  Leo  Foster 

(Mary  Marshall  Martin) 

Miss  Caroline  Brevard  Graham 
Mrs.  B.  H.  Griffin 

(Margaret  Smith) 

Mrs.  Hubert  Haywood 

(Emily  Ryan  Benbury) 

Mrs.  J.  M.  Heck 

(Mattie  A.  Callendine) 

Mrs.  John  W.  Hinsdale 

(Ellen  Devereux) 

Miss  Mary  Hilliard  Hinton 

♦Mrs.  Alexander  Q.  Holladay 

(Virginia  Randolph  Boiling) 

Mrs.  Erwin  Allan  Holt 

(Mary  Warren  Davis) 


♦Deceased 

§  Transferred  toother  Committees 


300  WAKE    COUNTY    COMMITTEE 

Mrs.  Arm  I  stead  Jones 

(Nannie  Branch) 

♦Mrs.  Garland  Jones 

(Florence  Monterey  Hill) 

§Miss  Mary  Frances  Jones 
*Mrs.  Paul  Hinton  Lee 

(Ellen  S.  Tyson) 

Miss  Margaret  Tyson  Lee 
♦Mrs.  Augustus  M.  Lewis 

(Sara  Matilda  Gorham) 

Mrs.  Harry  Loeb 

(Bessie  Armistead  Batchellor) 

Mrs.  Henry  Armand  London 

(Bettie  Louise  Jackson) 

Mrs.  Henry  M.  London 

(Mamie  Elliot) 

Mrs.  Isaac  Manning 

(Mary  Best  Jones) 

§Mrs  William  M.  Marks 

(Jane  Hawkins  Andrews) 

§Mrs.  William  J.  Martin 

(Lizzie  MacMillan) 

§Mrs.  Elvira  W^orth  Moffitt 
(Elvira  E.  Worth) 

Mrs.  Ben  W^  Moore 

(Katherine  Badger) 


♦Deceased 

§Transferred  to  other  Committees 


WAKE    COUNTY    COMMITTEE  301 

*Mrs.  Montford  McGehee 

(Sarah  Polk  Badger) 

Mrs.  John  Allan  MacLean 

(Eugenia  Graham  Clark) 

Mrs.  Franklin  McNeill 

(Jennie  Elliot) 

Mrs.  James  Kemp  Plummer 

(Lucy  Williams  Haywood) 

Mrs.  Edward  W.  Pou 

(Carrie  Haughton  Ihrie) 

IVIrs.  Ivan  Proctor 

(Lucy  Briggs  Marriott) 

Mrs.  William  E.  Shipp 

(Margaret  Busbee) 

Mrs.  Walter  M.  Stearns 

(Mary  Haywood  Fowle) 

^Mrs.  Frank  Lincoln  Stevens 

(Adeline  Chapman) 

Mrs.  Frank  Morton  Stronach 

(Isabel  Cameron  Hay) 

Mrs.  George  Syme 

(Harriet  Haywood) 

Mrs.  James  J.  Thomas 
(Lula  Olive  Felt) 

Mrs.  Robert  L.  Thompson 

(Annie  Busbee) 


"Deceased 

{Transferred  to  other  Committees 


302  WAKE    COUNTY    COAIMITTEE 

♦Mrs.  Platt  D.  Walker 

(Nettie  Reid  Covington) 

Mrs.  William  L.  Wall 

(Annie  Cameron  Collins) 

Mrs.  Thurman  Cary  Wescott 

(Daisy  Holt  Haywood) 

♦Mrs.  Spier  Whitaker 

(Fannie  de  Berniere  Hooper) 

§^Mrs.  George  Taylor  Winston 

(Caroline  Sophia  Taylor) 

♦Mrs.  William  Alphonso  W^ithers 

(Elizabeth  Witherspoon  Daniel) 

Mrs.  Carl  A.  Woodruff 

(Effie  Hicks  Hayw^ood) 

Mrs.  Edwin  S.  Yarborough 

(Nellie  Elliot) 


♦Deceased 

§Transferred  to  other  Committees 


